Saving some yeast possible?

[makeitadouble]

Hello folks,

Disclaimer; I'm honestly not much of a wine maker. More of a Brewer.

In an old wine cellar we stumbled across some unopened bottles of wine made by a family member (we're talking old here...). There is what looks to be yeast sediment in the bottoms of the bottles. Is it possible to salvage the yeast from these assuming its dormant? I couldn't find out how how long yeast can survive. These are over 30 years old, probably a bit older.

Any info. would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[xpops]

i'd say it's worth a shot at trying to harvest the dregs and build a small starter with them to see if you can get any activity. That is a super long time, but i'd say it's worth trying at least. you've got nothing to lose!

 

[ong]

Here's an interesting doc from an organization that cultured yeast from a recovered beer bottle from the 1700s: http://qvmag.cms.dedicated1.autech....eer_queen_victoria_museum_and_art_gallery.pdf

 

[makeitadouble]

Thanks that is the inspiration I needed! This will be a fun little project and I'm very excited to try to use the same yeast that my wife's great grandfather used.

 

[jgmillr1]

Hopefully this will work out for you. I like to use actively fermenting wine to innoculate subsequent batches of wine during harvest season since it is a great way to kick start the fermentation. I recently tried to use the lees from a wine that completed fermentation about 5 weeks earlier. I figured there should still be plenty of viable yeast in it. However, It was unable to start the fermentation within the 36hr window I gave it before giving up and dosing the juice with fresh yeast. Maybe simply more time was needed but I didn't want to risk the juice.

So, you may want to baby the yeast along in a gentle environment and give them enough time. It is possible they are completely autolyzed and dead after all this time, but you won't know until you try. Best of luck to you.