Test your gut feel: Reculturing 1+ year old WLP400 slant. Will it live?

[jds]

I was rooting around in my beer fridge and found a slant of WLP400 that's been in there around a year. Since I'm planning a belgian blonde for the weekend, I figured I'd play Dr. Frankenstein, and try to raise this sucker from the dead.

100 ml of water and 10g of DME later, it's whirling away on my stirplate. (Note: I'm pretty sanitary for this process, going so far as to use liberal quantities of rubbing alcohol and a butane torch to almost sterilize my equipment.)

So, brewing brothers and sisters: Test your gut feel here!

Will my WLP400 Culture:

(a) Rise from the dead like an avenging angel, slaying maltose left and right, and leaving behind ethanol, phenolics, and everything else WLP400-ish?

(b) Rise from the dead, but as something dark and twisted that almost passes for its predecessor, if the light's bad, or

(c) Stay dead and leave me with sour wort in a couple of days.

Vote now, come back in a couple of days and see if you were right!

 

[dantose]

A or C. Given refrigeration, I'm going to say A.

 

[CABeerMaker]

My bet is on A. Just feed those little guys some nutrients along with everything else and they should wake up hungry.

 

[Edcculus]

I have a feeling it will com back. You might have to step it up a few times, and give it some TLC. I've never cultured from a slant before thought, so its hard for me to tell.

 

[jds]

My bet is on A. Just feed those little guys some nutrients along with everything else and they should wake up hungry.

Bah! I knew I was forgetting something when I made the starter. Nutrients! Boo on me.

I'll definitely add yeast energizer to the starter when I step up tonight or Friday, depending on how the culture looks.

 

[Bokonon]

I think it will probably be fine, but might not be ready by the weekend.

Given the age of it I probably would have started with 10-25ml sterile wort for the first stepup. I think 100ml of almost sterile wort is a big playground for the yeasties to play around in, especially with all those bullys hanging out at the fenceline

 

[BreckBastion]

i'm saying A as long as it has been in the fridge and cold this whole time. I wouldn't even worry about it.

 

[jds]

I'm thinking there will be some lag time, for sure, given the big step-up. Since I wasn't planning on keeping the slant, I used a syringe to rinse the entire yeast culture, and some media, into the sterile wort.

I don't have to brew it this weekend, and now that I find out I'm going to my brother-in-law's house for father's day, I'll probably be brewing on an evening next week. Should be plenty of time to step up the starter and crash it to decant.

I've decided to give up on slanting because (a) I mostly use S-05, Cry Havoc, and Pacman now, and (b) I prefer washing and bottling a larger yeast culture.

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

I give it an A, I think those little yeastie bastards are freakin resilient!

 

[jds]

A it is.

I stepped it up from 100 ml to 1 l yesterday evening, and it had a big rocky head of krausen on it this morning, even on the stirplate. Those little yeast ARE resilient, aren't they?

 

[ikelso]

I just made a starter from a frozen batch of yeast I prepped using a guide here. Hopefully my tiny bit of yeast will turn out like yours in a few days.