East coast yeast Bug County shelf life (ECY20)

[jlivecc]

I recently found a bottle of East coast yeast's Bug County blend of wild yeast and bacteria that I had gifted to my Dad two years ago. It has been in a refrigerator in the unopened bottle since November 2014. Does anybody have any info about the shelf life of packaged wild yeast/bacteria or any info about building starters for things like this?

Thanks in advance for any information anybody can offer!

 

[skibb]

My guess is after 2 years, you will be very lucky if anything is still alive in it. Brett tends to store better at room temp for longer periods of time. The sacc strains might still be alive and dormant - I wouldn't think any bacteria is alive at this point.

I would try to pitch this into a small amount of some really low gravity wort and set it out - see if you get any activity.

 

[jlivecc]

Those were my initial thoughts as well. I think I will go with that plan and see what comes of it. No harm in trying! Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[rendang]

Did you manage to bring it back to life? I have ecy02 thats over a year past use by - hoping i can bring it back to life with multistep starter, be interested if you managed too!

 

[jlivecc]

I made up a 1 gallon batch of low gravity, low ibu wort last week and pitched the entire vial into it. So far I have not seen any indication of activity. This will be my first attempt at a sour/wild beer so I don't really know what to expect or how soon to expect anything.

If nothing happens I will most likely pitch some fresh yeast and possibly some bottle dregs from another sour and see what comes of it! I will certainly keep you in the loop!

 

[deepbluegroove]

If you have any beer you made from this culture of bugs / yeast then that may be a good source. I had some brett / bugs / yeast in jars, tried to get some activity from it. Nothing. Then I had some bottles from a batch I made with the same stuff. Activity in no time.

 

[rendang]

Any luck with this? 5 days ago i put ECY02, that was a year after expire, into small 1.040 (1 litre-ish) wort. Gave it a few small swirls and today it has pretty sizeable bubbling 1/4inch krausen on it. i didnt think any sacc would be alive, but it doesnt really look like just brett imo... was going to pitch some dregs in by decided against as then i wouldnt know if it had worked or not.

 

[bovineblitz]

At 1 year 2 months I had an ECY vial take off quickly in 13.2 gallons.