White labs yeast frozen solid

ordered some stuff to make a beer from midwest last week. All weekend and today it sat in Colorado and Wyoming.. Where as you might know the temps got below -20 every night. The yeast is frozen solid like a brick.

I have no LHBS... or any yeast to sub.

Should I just make a starter and see what happens? Should I make it perhaps lower gravity than 1040 and or a smaller size like people do when they harvest yeast from beer bottles with less yeast? after all that is the hope that perhaps 5% are still alive and i can nurse a army back to life so they can make my crazy stout and all die. Anyway what are your thoughts and suggestions on how to make this yeast do what it needs to do.

Thaw it and chuck it into a starter. Already spent the money right?

Definitely thaw it and make a starter. Thaw first for sure though.

Do you have any dry yeast just in case?

poptarts said:

Should I just make a starter and see what happens? Should I make it perhaps lower gravity than 1040 and or a smaller size like people do when they harvest yeast from beer bottles with less yeast?

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Yep. Try an O.G. between 1.015 and 1.020 in about 5 or 6 mL at first to see if it wakes up. If so, keep sizing it up to an eventual 1500 mL and pitch.

dangerbrew said:

Yep. Try an O.G. between 1.015 and 1.020 in about 5 or 6 mL at first to see if it wakes up. If so, keep sizing it up to an eventual 1500 mL and pitch.

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Cool thats what I was thinking, lets hope it makes it. Its going to need to be close to a gallon though

Hello said:

Do you have any dry yeast just in case?

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I have no LHBS... or any yeast to sub.

I would start by thawing it in the fridge though; too quick of a temp rise could end up damaging them even more.

Chances are the ice crystals that formed punctured the yeast cells and killed them all. Couldn't hurt to make a starter but I'd be VERY VERY surprised to see anything still alive in that pack.

Was it sitting outside or did it freeze en route? I live in Colorado and just ordered some liquid yeast. Didn't occur to me that cold temps might be an issue.

This is very relevant to my situation I am super upset with my situation right now. I ordered a couple kits from ahS, who usually I have been very satisfied with. This time they didn't ship
For literally 9 days after I placed my order. A week later my stuff was supposed to be here yeaterday. Didn't show, and this morning I got a ups email saying it would be here today. Showed up, cut open the box, frozen SOLID. Guarantee the **** sat on the truck overnight ;@. I'm no stranger to cold temps, I live in nd but this has never been an issue before. Going to make a starter but I'm not holding out much hope.

PRE66_6TART said:

Was it sitting outside or did it freeze en route? I live in Colorado and just ordered some liquid yeast. Didn't occur to me that cold temps might be an issue.

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Yep it sat in Commerce city all weekend and when I got it Monday evening it was rock solid. I tossed it in the fridge and said a prayer for the billions of lost souls. When I got off work today (Tuesday evening) I made a 1 Cup starter at 1.020 and shook the hell out of it. We will see what happens all I need is a handful to have lived.



We will see what it looks like in a day or 2. It's so small I can't use a hydro to see if the gravity went down or not... Going to be hard to tell if it worked even if it does. Maybe just shake it and see if there is co2 in the wort ( hopefully beer)?

[ame]http://youtu.be/vATndqkDTGs[/ame]

This is very accurate to what happened to my yeast and how I feel right now. But hey the movie had a happy ending right :/ ?

swem said:

This is very relevant to my situation I am super upset with my situation right now. I ordered a couple kits from ahS, who usually I have been very satisfied with. This time they didn't ship
For literally 9 days after I placed my order. A week later my stuff was supposed to be here yeaterday. Didn't show, and this morning I got a ups email saying it would be here today. Showed up, cut open the box, frozen SOLID. Guarantee the **** sat on the truck overnight ;@. I'm no stranger to cold temps, I live in nd but this has never been an issue before. Going to make a starter but I'm not holding out much hope.

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Make a small starter if it works you're golden if not you out like 2 table spoons of dme...
Guess I need to get a yeast bank going and only order dry yeast this time of year.

Tripple post, I do what I want!

So this morning like 12 hours or so after making my mini starter I woke up to this:

I think its working!! this is more bubbles then there were last night and the yeast appears to be even more suspended there isnt a 1cm layer of plain wort on top anymore its all a consistent hot coco color!! There might be some hope.

Travestian said:

Chances are the ice crystals that formed punctured the yeast cells and killed them all. Couldn't hurt to make a starter but I'd be VERY VERY surprised to see anything still alive in that pack.

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[ame]http://youtu.be/5CfNarCjSHM[/ame]
Just because I'm a Dexter fan

Funny how things change for us in the south. I almost never order liquid yeast during the summer. Now I'm willing to do it. For those of you in the north seems to be better to order dry in the winter time. Ironic.

Glad it seems to be working for you.

Travestian said:

Funny how things change for us in the south. I almost never order liquid yeast during the summer. Now I'm willing to do it. For those of you in the north seems to be better to order dry in the winter time. Ironic.

Glad it seems to be working for you.

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you can do ice packs in the summer, not really a reverse ice pack for winter time though

poptarts said:

I think its working!! this is more bubbles then there were last night and the yeast appears to be even more suspended there isnt a 1cm layer of plain wort on top anymore its all a consistent hot coco color!! There might be some hope.

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Glad to hear it! Yeast is a resilient little sucker. Sometimes with just the right amount of TLC it seems like you can wake up almost anything.

I think liquid yeast is packed in a glycerin solution to keep ice crystals from forming, allowing it to be stored frozen. I have a small yeast bank of my own that I packaged this way:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/guide-making-frozen-yeast-bank-35891/

There is no glycerin in wyeast or whitelabs vials, plenty of people use glycerin to freeze and store yeast but that is no the intent of these packs. http://www.whitelabs.com/content/yeast-storage-and-maintenance-0
White labs even says not to freeze cause it will kill them.

Well my starter liquid tastes and smells like beer so they made it! Guess its worth a shot to try since I don't think they can get too much colder than mine were. They sat -20F for 3 days so give it a try if this ever happens to you!

poptarts said:

Well my starter liquid tastes and smells like beer so they made it! Guess its worth a shot to try since I don't think they can get too much colder than mine were. They sat -20F for 3 days so give it a try if this ever happens to you!

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Good to know, and thanks for posting the results for the rest of us! Let us know how the beer turns out in the end.

Received my yeast today. It doesn't seem to be frozen, but that doesn't mean it didn't freeze at some point during the trip. Fortunately Austin Homebrew was smart enough to not include the ice pack that I accidentally left selected when placing my order. Thanks for posting your experience, I'm glad your yeast survived and I feel better about mine now. I guess yeast are pretty resilient. Although if yeast can survive for 45 million years preserved in amber and be used successfully to make beer, I shouldn't be so surprised.

dangerbrew said:

Good to know, and thanks for posting the results for the rest of us! Let us know how the beer turns out in the end.

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If you want to continue to follow these yeast on their epic journey... this is where their next adventure is heading
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/thoughts-deschutes-abyss-108227/index7.html