Old Yeast

[archthered]

I am making a Marzen that I originally had planned to be ready for last fall. I bought the stuff for it a while back, then life happened and I was unable to make it, I bought more yeast, then life happened again. Now I am ready to finally make my Marzen, however the yeast is old. I do not have a local Homebrew store within an hours drive so I decided I'd first try to revive what may have survived from before rather than have to wait for more yeast by mail, and of course have life get in the way again. I made a starter yesterday and added both old packets of yeast and beyond all hope I have activity and a bit of krausen.

So now that it looks like this will actually work I have a problem. When this starter is done I am making another starter with the resulting yeast, there is no way I'm hitting my pitching numbers on one round. But the question is should I pitch everything? I already have some yeast settling out, there is a greyish layer and the beginnings of a quite bright white layer. Some part of me says I should pitch the whole thing to keep my numbers as good as possible, pitching the handful of good yeast hiding in the dead, while another part of me is concerned that the inclusion of so much unhealthy yeast will end up creating problems with off flavors from unhealthy yeast, autolysis, etc. Anyway I would like to know what you all think about this.

 

[V-Fib]

I don't have a link to back my thoughts up but I pretty sure the dead yeast wont be an issue and may even give some nutrition to the live yeast.

 

[balrog]

How big a starter did you make and what do the calcs say you have? My pref calc is here.
I always make starters days in advance, typically 1.5-2L, after a couple stir plate days I let them settle at least overnight, decant off to 1L, save the proportion that I think will give me 100b to save for next starter, and pitch the rest. Mind you this is typically ales at 0.75m/ml, but sometimes the "hybrid" setting of 1.0m/ml.

[Edit: my saved yeasts have been up to a year old without problems]

 

[archthered]

I don't have a link to back my thoughts up but I pretty sure the dead yeast wont be an issue and may even give some nutrition to the live yeast.

I've heard that before as well, in fact I've been told yeast nutrient is often just dead yeast. I've never harvested yeast but I've heard comments from those who have that would suggest dead yeast can be problematic. Though to be honest I can't say I was fully following the conversation and may not have been understanding everything.

How big a starter did you make and what do the calcs say you have? My pref calc is here.
I always make starters days in advance, typically 1.5-2L, after a couple stir plate days I let them settle at least overnight, decant off to 1L, save the proportion that I think will give me 100b to save for next starter, and pitch the rest. Mind you this is typically ales at 0.75m/ml, but sometimes the "hybrid" setting of 1.0m/ml.

I used a 3L starter. I initially did the starter cals using Beer Smith just to see if it said there was any viability left in my yeast. After that I went to the Brewer's Friend calculator, its the one I typically use, and did my calculations there. Brewer's Friend actually told me that my yeast would have no viability based on manufacture date so I fudged the manufacture date until it matched the Beer Smith viability and based my plan on that. The calculator you shared gave a viability that was really close to what Beer Smith gave me, other than that it matched pretty closely to what Brewer's Friend said. At any rate since I do not have a stir plate I am going to need three rounds of starters, which means I probably won't be brewing until next week sometime, and that all three rounds need to be 3L, this limits how much wort I can save and transfer from one round to the next, my jar just isn't big enough for a 3L starter AND and extra 1L of previous wort. Though I may split out some and do two smaller starters.

 

[archthered]

Just a follow up in case anyone searches for this kind of an issue, I hate having thread that addresses my exact issue but then having it end with no comment about how things turned out.

In short I used all the yeast that was made from my three 3L starters, I decanted in between each time. The beer came out fantastic, the yeast took off quite well, I had the most vigorous fermentation I've seen with a lager at 48 degrees, though I may have been slightly over pitched.

 

[copper2hopper]

Good thread arch and good follow up with how it turned out. I am ALSO in somewhat of the same boat as you. I reused my Oktoberfest yeast that I saved from September of 2017 and just pitched it into my Oktoberfest I brewed up on Monday so the yeast was a little over 6 months old. I popped the jar I kept it in, in my fridge along with all my other re-harvested yeasts that I’ve never had ANY issues with reusing even after longer periods of time but this Oktoberfest one smelled SULFURY! I researched it a little before apprehensively pitching it finding that Oktoberfests usually smell sulfury during fermentation anyways. I pitched at about 53 degrees and got it in my ferm chamber set at 50 but the damn airlocks aren’t moving and there’s no activity yet now two days after pitching. My fear is that I used crappy old dead yeast and will have to pitch fresh stuff to get it going and I hope to hell I didn’t contaminate my 10 gallon batch by pitching sulfury smelling yeast. Anyone have any input on this??

 

[archthered]

Wish I could help you more. I've heard that some Oktoberfest have a sulfur note during fermentation, and I experienced a light note of it with this beer, but mine was a light note not strong but I don't know if that is meaningful or not. If you still haven't seen any activity I would take a gravity reading, if it hasn't dropped I would pitch some dry lager yeast like Saflager S-23 or W34/70, and I would do it quick. You should still end up with something along the lines of what you are looking for and you shouldn't have to dump the whole batch. I think you are better off trying this and seeing what happens than just assuming it's ruined. The money you spend on the new yeast packs will be nothing compared to how much money you save if this beer takes off.

 

[copper2hopper]

Thanks for the reply man. I called my LHBS and they advised spot on what you said. I went ahead and bought 4 packs of the Saflager W-34/70 and put the in my buckets on now day 4 of inactivity from brew day. I think I’ll be ok now and will keep ya updated.