Terek
"Did I just drop down a rabbit hole?"
I agree with the original poster, liquid yeast sucks! Under yielding cell counts, extremely prissy temperature tolerances, mandatory starters and expensive! Have at it fanboys but I am done with them, plenty of good dry yeasts out there!
im with this. I hate liquid yeast. so much work and you get less cells for more money. I made a wookie jack clone last week, and it called for WL002. nine freakin dollars......Plus the need for a 2 liter starter (OG is 1085)
The cost of the yeast and the starter was almost as much as all the other ingredients. Almost cried as i grabbed that $9 pack, with the $4 us-05 right under it. Not to mention i have a washed us-05, as well as a few others, that would be free. Liquid yeast seems a scam to me.
edit: but back to the OP, i have used many many liquid packs, and never had one be bad. Even when the LHBS was clearing out the old stock, and gave me some wyeast for free, cuz it was almost a year past the best by date. Those took of just fine