Is my yeast ruined?

[electricd7]

Hello,

My parents bought me my first homebrew kit form Midwest this year for Christmas. They bought it with the upgraded liquid yeast (wyeast?) packet. They didn't realize until a week after they took delivery that the yeast was supposed to be refrigerated after arrival. The did put it in the fridge after they realized it and its been there ever since, but is it still good to use? MFG date shows Nov 2012 on the packet. Thanks in advance!

ED7

 

[NWAleDad]

i would get another package if possible. Might be oaky, but it would be an under pitched batch and could lead to off flavors.

 

[electricd7]

Thats what I was afraid of....i guess I will order another pacakge..no homebrew shops in my area to go get one

 

[NWAleDad]

you could make a starter to test the viability of the yeast. This will also build up the yeast again and return the slurry to happy yeast numbers.

 

[progmac]

it's fine; make a starter with some of the extract that was included in the kit. i'm assuming you don't have a stash of extract or a LHBS.

 

[Matt3989]

Starters are a good idea even if you have good viable yeast. So if you do end up ordering another pack of yeast, add a package of light DME to your cart as well.

You just boil some water and DME together (1L of water to 100g DME) for 15 minutes to dissolve the extract and kill anything in the water, more you have a small batch of wort. Cool your wort down to 70dF and put it into some sanitized contain (glass jar, beaker, soda bottle, magnum wine bottle, whatever), pitch your yeast, cover the opening with foil, and shake the container up everytime you walk by it for a day or two. You can pitch the whole mixture into your brew. There are more indepth articles about starters, but that's the gist of it.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

As long as your using a starter youll be fine
Ive heard of people fermenting with year old yeast.
As long as you step it up and have a large enough pitch rate youll be ok.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

1 week is fine. glycogen reserves will be low so it might start low but viability is fine. For a detailed explanation with experimental results see this:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/12/yeast-health-when-kept-at-ambient.html