I honestly wonder what criteria some of you use to declare your yeast DOA? Since many brewers go by things like airlocks not bubbling as opposed to using a hydro and declare their brew ruined. Or smack a smack pack and if it doesn't inflate (which even on the wyyeast website says is not a necessity. I ask,
how many of you are making a starter with your liquid yeast? And how many of you who make starters are, like many of the "my starter isn't working" thread creator folks are looking for the wrong signs on their starters, and when we point out the
correct signs to them they realize their starters are indeed fine. And how many of you, whether you make a starter or not are waiting the 72 hours that we mention, and confirming the beer's not fermenting with a hydrometer.
In other words how many of you are treating the yeast properly on your end?
So many new brewers start threads here complaining there's somethign wrong and going by or not doing the above things, declaring their yeast dead, then when we tell them to take a hydrometer, they come back and say "ooops you were right, everyhting is fine."
If you haven't made a starter, haven't waited 72 hours after yeast pitch, and haven't confirmed the yeast isn't working
with a hydrometer reading then you haven't proven to me, or yourselves more importantly that your yeast is truly dead or truly damaged on arrival.
Like Brewham has proven,
by the simple act of making a starter that the yeast HE had shipped in the mail, in the heat of summer, was perfectly fine.
I'm not doubting that everyone's yeast isn't dead...only some. But if you are not using good breweing processes to begin with, then you can't really know what your yeast is doing, wheter it's viable or not.
Good brewing practice, especially where liquid yeast is involved requires making a starter for ALL liquid yeast, and for every beer above 1.020 OG. But regardless of OG, making a starter
proves your yeast is viable or not it also reproduces ANY living cells in the yeast, just like how we harvest yeast from a bottle of beer, where only a few cells may be viable. Incrememntally feeding a starter, makes enough yeast to do the job.
Just for the mere fact that your yeast may not be in the best shape when it gets to you, should be reason enough to make a starter.
Starters may or may not krausen, and often like in a fermenter of beer, an airlcok may not bubble whatsoever. But you will see flocculated yeast in the bottom of your vessel.
Yeast often takes 72 hours after yeast pitch to form a krausen, or to make a noticeable drop in gravity...So that's why there is a sticky at the top of the beginners forum stating that. Many many times a new brewer will open their bucket on the third day, and find a krausen, or they take a hydro reading and it has dropped, and everythign is fine (99% of those "Stuck/stopped fermentation threads on here, end that why, with the Op seeing everything is fine.)
An airlock is a valve to release excess co2 not a fermentation gauge, it may or may not bubble at all, or it may stop bubbling long before the yeast is done doing it's job. To truly know what is going on, YOU MUST use a hydometer, that is the only accurate way to know what your yeast is doing.
If you HAVE made a starter, if you DID wait 72 hours after pitching, and you DID take a hydro reading, and your yeast didn't take off (though if you made a starter you prolly already new) then I am sorry for your loss,
but I maintain that you are in the minority.
But if you didn't make a starter to beging with, or you went by airlcok bubbling, or you didn't wait 72 hours, or of equal importance to making a starter didn't use your hydrometer, then you are not handling the yeast properly.
Becasue you didn't give the yeast a good head start to begin with, to have the best chance of survival off the bat. With a starter even one or 2 surviving cells in your hot packet could be made into enough yeast to do the job.
And also you don't really know whether or not your yeast was dead to begin with...
And if you're not doing those basic things mentioned above, then you are really wasting your money to begin with....
I'll say it again, if yeast can sit for 45 million years encased in amber
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/ff_primordial_yeast then more times than not it WILL survive the journey to your home from the store.
Just make sure YOU do the best for it when it gets there!