Activate yeast pack or not?

[Calder]

I have a pack of Wyeast Roeselare. It is an old pack. Plan to use it tomorrow afternoon.

Should I activate it or just pitch without activating it? I want the bugs to get as much advantage over the yeast as possible.

 

[SDJay]

Depending on how old the pack is & the O.G. of your beer, you could be severely underpitching. A starter would fix that, but you are on a pretty tight timeline.If you decide to go ahead without a starter, I would definitely smack the pack. If it doesn't swell, the results could be interesting...

 

[Calder]

Depending on how old the pack is & the O.G. of your beer, you could be severely underpitching. A starter would fix that, but you are on a pretty tight timeline.If you decide to go ahead without a starter, I would definitely smack the pack. If it doesn't swell, the results could be interesting...

I want to underpitch the yeast. Ideally I would like to the yeast have a 4 day lag, and let the bugs have some time to build their colonies before the yeast starts to produce alcohol. The use of an old pack rather than a fresh one is deliberate. This one has a manufacture date of Jan 2014 (use by 6 months of that date).

I know I don't want to make a starter. I'm OK if the yeast is dead, I have a Belgian going, and can use a small amount of the cake if I really need to.

 

[SDJay]

I want to underpitch the yeast. Ideally I would like to the yeast have a 4 day lag, and let the bugs have some time to build their colonies before the yeast starts to produce alcohol. The use of an old pack rather than a fresh one is deliberate. This one has a manufacture date of Jan 2014 (use by 6 months of that date).

I know I don't want to make a starter. I'm OK if the yeast is dead, I have a Belgian going, and can use a small amount of the cake if I really need to.

Mea culpa.

 

[Calder]

In the end I activated the pack a few hours before I needed it. There was a slight expansion of the pack in that time. I pitched the single pack into 1.055 wort, and it is just starting to show kraeusen after 48 hours.

I'm glad it is working, but also disapointed there wasn't a longer lag time.

The pack had a manufacture date of 1/2014, 8 months ago.