My Vintage Yeast Bank

[ChrisfromAbby]

So a few years back I became quite excited by all the HBT discussion and experimentation around the topic of freezing yeast. I avidly followed and began building up cultures and washing yeast, then carefully mixing yeast cake sludge with a proportion of wort and glycerine and then freezing in 2oz aliquots in my chest freezer.
And then never used them.
My wife was getting a little peeved that her smallish chest freezer was becoming space challenged and I volunteered that my Yeast Bank could probably go.
But then it was sitting on the kitchen counter and I couldn't just simply throw them all in the trash. I mean, all that effort just - wasted?
Poor buggers needed to have at least a chance, right?

So I brewed up some starter wort and poured it into sterile Mason jars and dumped in a vial or two of what I had in the bank.

Damn if I didn't get most of them going!
The lagers were strong out of the gate.
2278 was the king. The sample frozen April 14/2013 was bubbling within 12 hours. Another of the same variey frozen Jan 18/2014 was going by 24 hours.
Now one I labeled as Budvar 2002 was going the next day - but I'm not sure what that really is.
Since I was really into Czech Pils then and not so much German, I suspect I was a little dyslexic with the numbers and it was Budvar 2000.
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstehan Weizen yeast was a little slow to take off, but did begin on Day 3. It was banked Jan 25 20212
1968 London ale yeast took until Day 4 to show activity. It was frozen some time in 2013
1332 NW Ale yeast was a complete bust. It was frozen Jan 18 2012.

Some of these have been frozen in your average chest freezer for almost 10 years!

 

[3 Dawg Night]

This is a cool writeup. Glad your loyal little yeasts got a chance to go out with a bang.

 

[rtstrider]

So a few years back I became quite excited by all the HBT discussion and experimentation around the topic of freezing yeast. I avidly followed and began building up cultures and washing yeast, then carefully mixing yeast cake sludge with a proportion of wort and glycerine and then freezing in 2oz aliquots in my chest freezer.
And then never used them.
My wife was getting a little peeved that her smallish chest freezer was becoming space challenged and I volunteered that my Yeast Bank could probably go.
But then it was sitting on the kitchen counter and I couldn't just simply throw them all in the trash. I mean, all that effort just - wasted?
Poor buggers needed to have at least a chance, right?

So I brewed up some starter wort and poured it into sterile Mason jars and dumped in a vial or two of what I had in the bank.

Damn if I didn't get most of them going!
The lagers were strong out of the gate.
2278 was the king. The sample frozen April 14/2013 was bubbling within 12 hours. Another of the same variey frozen Jan 18/2014 was going by 24 hours.
Now one I labeled as Budvar 2002 was going the next day - but I'm not sure what that really is.
Since I was really into Czech Pils then and not so much German, I suspect I was a little dyslexic with the numbers and it was Budvar 2000.
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstehan Weizen yeast was a little slow to take off, but did begin on Day 3. It was banked Jan 25 20212
1968 London ale yeast took until Day 4 to show activity. It was frozen some time in 2013
1332 NW Ale yeast was a complete bust. It was frozen Jan 18 2012.

Some of these have been frozen in your average chest freezer for almost 10 years!

That's actually good to hear! I have around 140 15ml test tubes of various strains in the freezer lol The journey began around Feb/March of this year. So far so good! If winter ever decides to show up here in the south I'll put in another yeast order for the various liquid strains we are unable to get locally. Want to make sure it's cool/cold the whole transit after the ice pack gives out

 

[deuc224]

That's actually good to hear! I have around 140 15ml test tubes of various strains in the freezer lol The journey began around Feb/March of this year. So far so good! If winter ever decides to show up here in the south I'll put in another yeast order for the various liquid strains we are unable to get locally. Want to make sure it's cool/cold the whole transit after the ice pack gives out

This is what im waiting for in Tx too. As soon as it gets colder im gonna order a mountain of different yeasts to multiply out and save. I have a 2 year old yeast that was in the fridge and just in some wort that spun up in a day, bastards really are pretty resilient.