Smack Pack Question

[Myrdhyn]

For my latest brew I decided to go with Bee Cave Brewery's Bavarian Hefewezien. It will be the first time I've used a Wyeast smack pack, and I noticed when they showed up yesterday from BMW, one of the packs had gotten smacked and was swelling already.

How long do I have to use this yeast? I wasn't planning on making a starter (don't have the capability yet), and originally it was going to be ~2.5 weeks before I could brew. I can fast forward my brew day to Friday, but no sooner. Is that going to be good enough, do I need to figure out a way to do a starter (I only want to do this for this brew if it is absolutely necessary)?

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Starters, especially for wheat beers are EASY.

All you need is a quart canning jar, some DME and a couple of pots.

Put the jar and some water in a large pot with a cover. Boil it for about 20 minutes then let it cool.

Put some water in a smaller pot, bring to a boil. Add about a half cup DME and simmer it for about 10 minutes. Let it cool.

Sanitize the smack pack, open and pour contents into cooled jar. Fill jar about half full of cooled DME water, cover loosely with some sanitized foil.

Every now and then, give the jar a swirl.

On brew day, put the jar in the fridge. When ready to pitch, pour off "beer", sump sludge into fermenter.

That's it.

 

[SumnerH]

It'll be fine Friday or in 2.5 weeks. Shake it well just before you open it to pitch.

I don't understand "I wasn't planning on making a starter (don't have the capability yet)"--if you can brew, you can make a starter. All you do is boil 1 cup of DME per quart of water (2 qts is a decent size to begin with), cool, put it in a cleaned and sanitized container, and add the yeast. Hold a piece of sanitized aluminum foil tight over the top and shake vigorously for a minute or so. You're done (aside from waiting about 18 hours).

If you want to improve it, shake or swirl gently whenever you walk by (remember it's fermenting, so there's CO2 in there and it will bubble over if you shake hard).

 

[TotemWolf]

It may not have been 'smacked'. The packs will swell in the heat. Even if the nutrient pack was smacked, all it did was increase the cell count in the bag. It should be great. Put it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

Don't worry about the starer this time, but I would advice you to make starters for all your brews. All you have to have is a big jar, some foil and some DME. There are some good thread on starters on the forum. Check 'em out. It doesn't have too be over-fancy with laboratory quality beakers and stirs plates. Start simple, but start.

 

[Myrdhyn]

I should have clarified on the starter part: I don't have any DME/LME, and by "figure out how to do a starter" I meant "find some DME in this LHBS forsaken town, or place another order online"

I planned on doing starting to do starters possibly with this beer, and definitely after this beer, but I flat out forgot to order any DME when I placed this order

edit: The reason I suspect the pack got smacked is the other pack that was shipped with it isn't in any way swollen. Either way the yeast packs are already stored in the fridge, and it's good to know I've got plenty of time to either just brew it as planned OR go the starter route.

 

[a10t2]

One thing you could try is to boil up about half a pound of your extract in half a gallon of water, and pitch the yeast into that the day before you brew. Then when you're ready to pitch the main batch, just dump the whole thing in - after 24 hours the yeast should be rockin'.

 

[Myrdhyn]

Yeah, that's basically making a starter. Which I can't do because I don't have any extract (recipe ingredients doesn't have any if you mean use some of that; I'm an all grain brewer).