This is exactly what I came here to find,If anyone else had a similar opinion of these things as I did.I completely agree,these things are a HUGE pain in the ass !!
1st I didn't realize there was inner and outer packaging,not a big deal but I had no idea how much yeast was still in there because I couldn't see anything.I can chalk that up to a learning curve.
I got that off and the only thing it helped was to view the yeast that would not exit the package.I tried to press it out and would just keep getting sucked back in.I finally cut the other end off and there was still sludge that wouldn't move,kept trying to pinch it out eventually it hit my finger then dropped in flask.
I can only hope my finger was properly sanitized...
Since I've become sold on Wyeast I'm not too concerned but there are 3 or 4 strains I can't get from Wyeast that will force me to buy White Labs however if it comes down to a choice 1056 or 001 or any other they both offer there really isn't any reason to buy 001 when I can buy the original easier package to open,not to mention w/ the newer companies offering higher cell counts I think it will be easy to avoid this pain in my ass in the future.