Expired Dry Yeast

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Twilight

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I have a packet of Nottingham that expired on 2007-10. It was stored on the shelf.
I want to brew this weekend... I can use what I have or go to a local you brew shop and pick up some Nottingham that they keep in bulk in the fridge, however I must say that I don't really trust these guys and I hesitate buying anything from them because you just don't know. So what would you do?
 
2007-10 is now. i don't use dry yeast much but if i had to guess it should be just fine. as far as the USFDA is concerned, the expiration date of a food product is not the date that it's gone bad, but the date it starts to go bad. imagine you bought some ground beef on monday and the expiration date is this saturday, 10/6. if on saturday it was no longer usable then wouldn't it be mostly bad today? i know that dry yeast and ground beef are just a LITTLE different, but you get the point. if you pitch that yeast today and it's completely useless then it probably wasn't very useful a month ago.

you could also make a starter. i know most of the dry yeast users on the forum say that making a starter isn't beneficial when using dry yeast, but you can certainly check it's viability. try doing a search for dry yeast starters and see what you get. again without a lot of dry yeast experience i'm pretty sure that the worst thing that could happen from making a starter is that you'll build some lag time when you pitch the starter to your finished wort.

good luck, and let us know what you decide
 
It's only 10-2007 right now... and barely at that. I'm 95% sure that yeast will far outlive its end-date even if it was stored at room temperature.

If you aren't sure, make a yeast starter out of it and see if you get any airlock activity before pitching it...
 
"expired dry yeast" reminds me of "available crack whore" Why not, what are the chances of an infection?

Just buy some new yeast and don't worry.
 
Brewpastor said:
"expired dry yeast" reminds me of "available crack whore" Why not, what are the chances of an infection?
...

Exept in this case if the packet has been kept cool, dry and unopenned, it's like "available Crack Whore...making her professional debut..."


Is it ironic that I unconsciously capitalized crack whore? hmmmm....
 
Dry yeast is viable for up to a year after the expiration date. Viability drops about 20% per year at room temperature, 4% if refrigerated. At 20 billion cells per gram to start, by the end of three years, you are down to 40B in a 5 gram packet and 88B for an 11 gm packet.
 
I decided that I'm going to take my chances with the expired yeast. I will post an update in a few days.

Thank You
 
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