Black spots in yeats vial

[Gaijin]

So I am working on a yeast starter this evening. It's only my second starter, my 8th batch or so, so I am pretty green with this stuff. I am working with a White Labs vial of Vermont Ale Yeast manufactured on 01/28/2015. As I am cold crashing my wort I notice there are some black spots floating in the bottom of the vial. I refrigerated the vial when I received it, and took it out a few hours ago to let it settle to room temperature. I shook the crap out of it, but I have not noticed these black spots till a few minutes ago. Anyone have any experience or advice with this?

 

[BamaPhil]

I noticed a few specks in my rather large starter for a lager I just made. I chose to RDWAHAB, and fermentation went fine. Somebody may have a better answer, but I just assumed it was from the DME I used.

 

[Talgrath]

Hrrrm, do you have a picture of it? Hard to tell based on description alone.

 

[Gaijin]

Unfortunately I did not think to take a photo. I have heard about the spots in starters and on fermenters. These were actually floating IN the yeast vial prior to being opened.

 

[Beezer94]

Unfortunately I did not think to take a photo. I have heard about the spots in starters and on fermenters. These were actually floating IN the yeast vial prior to being opened.

Ironically the only time I experienced the mysterious black specks was in a conan yeast bottle (from one of the other sources); I never used the yeast because of them so I can't tell you if it really is an issue or not.

I would contact White Labs about it and see what they say.

 

[Gaijin]

Incidentally, the starter is about 36 hours on now. It really took off last night before I went to work, I had to rig up a blow off assembly before I went to work because it was pushing out the foam stopper. Anyway, this is only my second starter and it looks and is acting differently from the first. This last picture is after I swirled it some, the yeast seemed to settle back in clumps. Does this look normal/ok? Anything to be concerned about?

 

[Talgrath]

That one looks good, I'm not sure about the black spots you mentioned in the other one.

 

[Gaijin]

That one looks good, I'm not sure about the black spots you mentioned in the other one.

That's good to hear coming from someone who has probably done more than I have. This is the first stage of the starter I made with the yeast which had the spots in the vial. I guess at the end of the day there's no cause for concern since it seemed to have gone through a healthy growth. I'm going to cool it and do another stage.

 

[Smellyglove]

I've had small black "things" coming from both wyeast an WL, I have no idea what they are but I don't think about them any longer.

 

[Hello]

I've never seen it but that doesn't mean much. I'd at least contact WL to ask.