Resurrecting 2011 Saison Yeast

[jgalati]

I had a vial of White Labs Saison Yeast laying around in the back of my fridge (expiration date NOV 2011). I pitched it into a 600ml starter. 20 Hours later I pitched it into a 1.5L starter. I then crashed it in the freezer for 1.5 hours and it appeared all the yeast flocculated. I decanted the beer off the top and let it warm up. (I left about 200ml of slury in the flask). I brewed my saison, and actually had about 5.5 gallons when I was done. So I put 5 gallons in my 5 gallon carboy (I added the yeast while draining into the carboy), and filled it to the very very top of the carboy. I attached a blowoff. I had a very very very thin layer of yeast still in the flask and I thought what the hell. So I poured about 1000ml of the saison wort into the flask.

2 hours later the saison was VERY active. Over 20 hours I blew off close to half a gallon of krausen.
The starter also took off 6 hours later (stir plate), and even with that and a decent size vortex it still poured out the top of my 2L flask.

Lesson learned: Sanitize properly and meticulously, and your yeast will last forever. From a very very very small culture of yeast in the flask after pitching I still was able to bring it back up to a decent size population.

Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[el_caro]

Not sure about the last forever bit but I agree that the calculators seem to be ultra conservative about the viability of older yeast.

Agree with the sanitation being paramount. I think temperature and eliminating oxygen and impurities from the storage medium are also most important.
Storing rinsed yeast under de-oxygenated distilled water seems a good approach if one is planning prolonged storage in the fridge. Keep them stress free is the key.
I have some WLP001 on the stir plate right now that is only 6 months old and it is going along fine. I pitched 25ml yeast into 400ml starter then stepped up to 2L.