Idea... Well a proposal to brewing supply companies

[kh54s10]

I have bought liquid yeast online a few times. I always worry about weather conditions and how the yeast will be handled along the way. At my LHBS I feel they order and get the yeast more quickly than I will, then they care for it as soon as they get it. If I order online, does it sit in a truck at freezing or roasting temperatures. If I am not home when it arrives, how long will it sit on my porch in the sun or (before I moved to FL) sit in freezing temperature. My experience is that I can get at least as fresh at the LHBS and know that it has been handled well. I also know the date on the package before I buy it. Online you won't.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

carrying four or five labs extremely similar yeast is just another way to lose even more money

Absolutely correct. However, you can still lose money on the noobs that are just following a recipe blindly and have absolutely no clue, for example, that WLP001, WY1056, and US05 are the same yeast. They go to order one, don't see it, then go somewhere else. If I owned a shop (retail or online) I would put up a giant list that provides a yeast ID cross-reference.

Once someone's skills and knowledge grow, we get far more picky. For example in my case of preferring Giga-021 over WLP029 or WY2565 (all labeled as Kolsch yeast but very different strains and flavor profiles).

In all fairness, my local LHBS (one of the Morebeer retail stores) carries a huge selection with many duplicates across brands. The guy that runs it has been there 17 years and can help people out, he is a human brewing wiki. Some of the "kids" that part time there are not as skilled. Nice folks, don't get me wrong, but a early twenty something year old doesn't have enough life experience let alone brewing experience to know what they are doing yet. Some small shops don't have that financial or knowledge backing. Sometimes, because of that huge stock, something might get a bit old before it's caught by the staff. No big deal.

 

[Bobby_M]

Absolutely correct. However, you can still lose money on the noobs that are just following a recipe blindly and have absolutely no clue, for example, that WLP001, WY1056, and US05 are the same yeast. They go to order one, don't see it, then go somewhere else. If I owned a shop (retail or online) I would put up a giant list that provides a yeast ID cross-reference.

Once someone's skills and knowledge grow, we get far more picky. For example in my case of preferring Giga-021 over WLP029 or WY2565 (all labeled as Kolsch yeast but very different strains and flavor profiles).

In all fairness, my local LHBS (one of the Morebeer retail stores) carries a huge selection with many duplicates across brands. The guy that runs it has been there 17 years and can help people out, he is a human brewing wiki. Some of the "kids" that part time there are not as skilled. Nice folks, don't get me wrong, but a early twenty something year old doesn't have enough life experience let alone brewing experience to know what they are doing yet. Some small shops don't have that financial or knowledge backing. Sometimes, because of that huge stock, something might get a bit old before it's caught by the staff. No big deal.

I'm okay with that because the same can be said about which maltster's pale malt is on the recipe.

 

[skou]

This topic interests me, in a weird way!

Say I was to buy a smack pack of, let's
say, Wyeast 3068, and want to brew a
few batches of Hefeweisen. (One of my
favorite beers.) or Dunkelweisen, which
use the same yeast.

I get the smack-pack, smack it, and make
a yeast starter with it. And, make 4 more
starters, from that. Ferment 3 of them to
completion, and refrigerate them. Yes, use
one for my next batch, and have 3 more,
under beer, in the refrigerator, to be used
later.

How long will the stored yeast last, and is
this a viable solution.

(Really, Alcohol isn't a problem, it is a
SOLUTION!)

steve

 

[NeoBrew]

Lots of people do this. It is generally called "overbuilding your starter".

A more common variation on it would be to build up your starter so that it has 100B cells more than you need for your beer. Pour that off when it is in suspension and refrigerate that. Then, next time you brew do the same thing. That way you always have yeast on hand and it is fresher than setting 3 extras aside.

I believe that when you build the starter you would consider that "day 0" for the yeast. Depending on how you store it it will loose viability more or less as predicted by the many yeast calculators out there.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

How long will the stored yeast last, and is
this a viable solution

People write books on the answer to this. But... The short answer is every yeast and method is different.

You can reuse (save the yeast from your fermenter). Peoples success ranges from a couple weeks to a few months if kept in the fridge. Room temp is bad on yeast, as is sitting in a fermenter for weeks. Some yeast lasts longer, some die off more quickly. Also, the higher the gravity the beer was, or the hoppier it was, the less viable the yeast cake will be.

You can "rinse" or "acid wash" your yeast after fermentation is complete. Storage time can improve a little bit when doing this, but its more work and involves more aseptic (sterile environment) work load.

When reusing, different yeasts will react/morph differently through multiple generations of reuse. If it's a blended yeast strain, never reuse it, you will never see the same ratios as the 1st generation was. You can either trust someone when they say they got great results through 10 generation, or keep it safe and dont go beyond 3 or 4.

You can also split your new yeast pack and build multiple starters. Maybe start with a 100ml or 200ml starter, then restart that at 1L or 2L. The starters will last as above.

You can go full potato and "slant" or "plate" your yeast. Storage can last a year (two if properly frozen with mineral oil or glycerin). More lab type supplies needed, very aseptic environment and practices, and to make use of your "yeast bank", you'll need 2 or 3 starter cycles (1 to 1.5 weeks) to build the culture back up to a pitch quantity of cells. This is what i've been doing off and on, with great success. Once I realized that a starter should pretty much be done anytime you want to guarantee yeast viability (or prove it dead before pitching), I figured slanting wouldn't be much more work. You can literally get hundreds of batches from a single yeast package and its all essentially "1st generation" (not reused from brewing)

Google all the terms above and keep in mind that no single video, opinion, or website is scripture. Find multiple sources for the information and interpolate as you deem proper.

 

[kh54s10]

I have a frozen yeast bank. 25% yeast, 25% glycerin and 50% water. I have successfully revived yeast stored for 6 years. Not sure if it changed, but I did get a very good beer with the yeast.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Yup. I banked yeast years ago. After this nonsense, i've ordered some supplies and am going to start banking again. Made up 25 agar malt slants tonight.

That Giga-021 I mentioned in the O/P took many days to rejuvenate. At 3 months and whatever happened to it during that time, kicked its a$$. I let it settle out after it slowed down, poured off the old wort, put another 2L of fresh wort back in. It was chewing through the new food like a fat kid at a Twinkie festival, within a couple hours.

Lesson learned. Slant it! That $16 package of near dead yeast is going to get me a couple hundred batches.