two years in my fridge...will my wild yeast perk up

[paulshe]

After a short discussion at one of the local breweries I decided to bring back to life my one wild yeast I caught. It made a decent strong raspberry ale about 2 years ago. When I caught it I grew it and kept some for "later". Well the jar says 9/1/2015. This is now later. whipped up a starter tonight. It's been in the fridge at about 40 degrees for the last two years.

As letterman used to say "will it float?"

If it shows life I have a nice strong scotch ale that I'll tackle with this.

ps. the smell from opening the jar was not as bad or strong as i suspected.

 

[IslandLizard]

I'm curious too.

I've revived some old sour yeast mixes that were 2 years in the fridge. Kept them a week or 10 days on the stir plate (orbital shaker, actually) until the starter became much lighter in tone. Ended up with a good pitchable culture.

 

[rhys333]

What's your plan of action to bring it back? I did this a few months ago with some old 3724 slurry. I just used about a teaspoon of slurry and stepped it up. Worked great.

 

[balrog]

I've used year old refrigerated over-builds (make 1.5L starter with 100b, get supposedly 300b, save 1/3 for next over-build).

I've also had 3 month old sample be dead, but the odor was "off".

I bet since your odor is not strange, bad, dying octopus smell or similar, it will likely come back, but you might have to step it twice for a pitchable amount.

 

[bolus14]

I recently did this with some WY3463 Forbidden Fruit. Since it's a PC release I couldn't get any fresh and had a 1.5yr old jar in the fridge and figured might as well try to build it up. Worked flawlessly, have made a couple Wit's, washed and used some of the slurry in a Tripel, and this weekend will use more of the slurry from one of the Wit's in a Mad Elf clone. Will still have two jelly jars left and will likely make something low OG and save more slurry from that.

 

[paulshe]

so this was from an overgrown starter. made a 1000ml starter. Its been on the stir plate for almost 2 day and dies not look promising. I do have another jar that is the slurry from the last time I brewed with this (probably like 20 months old). I'm thinking of dumping some of this into the starter to see if I get anything that looks like fermentation. If that fails, I'll leave a glass out to try to catch some more....

 

[rhys333]

so this was from an overgrown starter. made a 1000ml starter. Its been on the stir plate for almost 2 day and dies not look promising. I do have another jar that is the slurry from the last time I brewed with this (probably like 20 months old). I'm thinking of dumping some of this into the starter to see if I get anything that looks like fermentation. If that fails, I'll leave a glass out to try to catch some more....

Try doing a weak 1.020 starter with a small amount of slurry. It might take a few days.

 

[paulshe]

Well i was about to give up on the starter. took it off the stir plate and observed some bubbles. Another day on the plate and it is for sure alive. Took it off and cold crashed. So, it took 1l at 1.040 down to 1.000. The "beer" was not very funky. If I remember right last time I used this I brewed a pale ale and added raspberries at secondary. It did not go to 1.000. So should i brew with this is the question. I'm thinking of doing a 1 gallon "strong" batch to see if this chews all the way thru something at around 1.070.