Liquid yeast seems to be dead, need help

[Aerolithe]

This is my third batch of beer, and the first using liquid yeast. I'm trying to brew a hefeweizen, and I was pretty happy to see that the LHBS had some Wyeast 3068 considering their liquid yeast selection is pretty thin. However, it was just a couple days past the 6 month mark. Decided to take a chance on it anyway, and made a half-gallon starter in a one gallon jug. After 6 hours, the smack pack still hadn't expanded any, first sign that things aren't well. Went ahead and opened it and pitched it into starter. Shaking it to aerate created a fair amount of foam. After 12 hours, the yeast had settled to the bottom and was a milk-chocolate color, and no air-lock activity. The foamy head had mostly died down by this point too, instead of maintaining/getting larger as I would have expected. Now it has been almost 48 hours, still no signs of life.

I really want to use a yeast strain that will give me some significant ester flavors, without having to wait for an online order of liquid yeast to arrive. I was thinking maybe I could harvest the yeast from a six-pack of something, although I'm aware that many hefeweizens have different bottle strains than the primary fermentation. My questions are: 1) which brands can I harvest yeast from, and can anyone point me in the direction of a good tutorial on the process? and 2) Since my resources are limited, I was wondering if I could reuse this starter by just pitching the sediment right into the jug and giving it a good shake. Since the yeast in there are dead, it should still be full of unused nutrient from the smack pack, plus I'd have to go buy more malt extract to finish the batch if I use what I have to make a fresh starter. I was careful about sanitization, but I also know it'd be a great breeding ground for anything that might have slipped through.

 

[COLObrewer]

Sounds like your starter went perfectly and is now ready to pitch, your yeast are not dead, they are waiting, for you.

 

[JonK331]

Sounds like your starter went perfectly and is now ready to pitch, your yeast are not dead, they are waiting, for you.

+1 Starters ferment really fast. You can build it up a second time if you want or just pitch. I cold crash my starters over night, then pour off the starter beer when I start brewing and let the yeast come up to room temp (keeping sanitized and covered of course). You are fine, just pitch it.

Harvesting yeast from commercial beers can be a touchy subject because many breweries pitch additional different yeast at bottling.

 

[terrapinj]

does it look like you have more yeast at the bottom of your starter vessel than when you 1st added the smack pack?

 

[Aerolithe]

Is the color a concern? All the yeast I've used have been a milky or creamy color. Also, I found it weird that a hefeweizen yeast would have settled out in a matter of hours, I would think even if this was normal for another strain a hefeweizen yeast would have stayed in suspension longer than half a day.

 

[Aerolithe]

does it look like you have more yeast at the bottom of your starter vessel than when you 1st added the smack pack?

no, seems to me that the amount of sediment is the same, and the starter is pretty well clear.

 

[Revvy]

It doesn't matter one blip in your fermenter or your starter flask if the airlock bubbles or not (if you are using an airlock and not tinfoil if you are using tinfoil, you aren't getting bibbling anyway,) or if you see a krauzen. In fact starter fermentation are some of the fastest or slowest but most importantly, the most boring fermentations out there. Usually it's done withing a few hours of yeast pitch...usually overnight when we are sleeping, and the starter looks like nothing ever happened...except for the little band at the bottom. Or it can take awhile...but either way there's often no "activity" whatsoever....

I usually run my stirplate for the first 24 hours, then shut it down, if you are spinning your starter it is really hard to get a krausen to form anyway, since it's all spinning, and there's often a head of foam on it from the movement.


All that really matters is that creamy band o yeast at the bottom.

This is a chilled sample so it's flocculated, but even with an unchilled sample you should see a band of yeast at the bottom. Here's an unchilled version

Same thing, a band.

As it is I've only ever seen two or three krausens actually on my starter (one blew off a bunch of krausen and knocked the tinfoil off the flask,) and the evidence of one on the flask at the "waterline" once. But I've never not had a starter take off.

Look for the yeast at the bottom, don't worry what it looks like on top.

If you have yeast on the bottom....that's all you really need.

If it looks anything like that, your are ready to either feed it again, or use it.

People always thing the yeast at the bottom of the flask is the same, but they are wrong. I am 100% sure your starter took off fine.

 

[strat_thru_marshall]

is the yeast layer really the color of milk chocolate? If it's dark brown like that you may have a problem.

 

[kanzimonson]

If things settled out within just a few hours, I'd say it hasn't gotten started yet. I've had old smack packs take their sweet time to get going in a starter. Wait it out a little longer to see if you get anything happening.

I'd definitely build this up a second time. When you're at a point that you're ready to declare "Nothing is happening right now, and all the yeast is at the bottom," decant the liquid and pour another half gal of wort on top. Eventually you'll get something working.

 

[smakudwn]

You can always check the gravity of the starter and see if anything has fermented?

 

[Aerolithe]

If things settled out within just a few hours, I'd say it hasn't gotten started yet. I've had old smack packs take their sweet time to get going in a starter. Wait it out a little longer to see if you get anything happening.

I should have known that this was the right answer. When I took it off the shelf to have a good look at things, there was absolutely nothing going on and it was almost crystal clear, obviously very little or no yeast in suspension, but I stirred up some of the sediment. When I checked on it again today, it was cloudy, like I would expect from beer that is fermenting, and I could definitely see some bubbles rising in the starter and there was some foam on top.

So now that I've finally got at least some degree of life in there, I want to put it to good use! This brings up a point i've been curious about in regards to reusing low-flocculating strains for multiple batches. Since having the yeast remain in suspension is actually a desirable characteristic in a lot of wheat beer styles, wouldn't repitching the yeast sediment from the primary, the very first cells to flocculate, result in fairly quick loss of strain characteristics? It seems like it would be preferable to keep some of the finished beer before its had a chance to clear and use it to make a starter, if that would be enough yeast.

The reason I bring it up, is that I do believe the grey-brown sediment is mostly dead, and since the starter has gone from clear to cloudy (much cloudier than it was from the small amount of sediment I kicked up) it stands to reason that there is a substantial amount of yeast floating around. I may just not be used to using this strain, but I have read that healthy yeast is usually cream colored and that dead yeast is usually brownish. So wouldn't it make more sense to pour the still cloudy liquid into a second stater wort and leave the sediment, instead of decanting the liquid to keep the (what i think is) mostly dead yeast for pitching?

Also: I'm only making a two gallon batch. If I pitch the yeast tonight, do you think it'd be ready? I understand that making a second starter might be a good idea from such a weak pack of yeast to make five gallons, but I'm only brewing a two gallon batch, and another starter for just two gallons seems like a lot of work and malt.

 

[kanzimonson]

I've had a couple situations like this, where there was a bunch of dead, brown yeast on the bottom of the flask. I decided the risk of contamination wasn't worth messing with it.

As for the right pitching rate for two gallons, I don't really know what to tell you. Those super old starters really take a long time to get going, and I'm suspicious that this starter will grow enough yeast. Sure, you're getting some replication in there, but I feel like the yeast are using a lot of the available nutrients just to get healthy again.

I don't really have any evidence for the way I feel about it - just going off previous experiences.

 

[Aerolithe]

I've had a couple situations like this, where there was a bunch of dead, brown yeast on the bottom of the flask. I decided the risk of contamination wasn't worth messing with it.

As for the right pitching rate for two gallons, I don't really know what to tell you. Those super old starters really take a long time to get going, and I'm suspicious that this starter will grow enough yeast. Sure, you're getting some replication in there, but I feel like the yeast are using a lot of the available nutrients just to get healthy again.

I don't really have any evidence for the way I feel about it - just going off previous experiences.

Well, now that there's a chance of success I'd rather keep going and just chalk it up as a learning experience no matter how it turns out. I just didn't want to pitch yeast that I didn't think had an even remote chance of success. I also have a package of Safbrew S-33 dry yeast as a backup if things don't start out well.

So I guess I just want guidance as far as which seems like the worse option: pitching just the liquid, leaving what i think is dead, and risk not having enough yeast, or pitching it all in hopes of salvaging something and have a bunch of dead yeast possibly undergoing autolysis and throwing in some off flavors.

 

[kanzimonson]

I don't think pitching the dead yeast is that big of a deal. But I still think it's likely you'd be underpitching.