Wyeast 1099 looks strange.

[lurker18]

I am making a sweet stout, from Jamil and J. Palmers book, using the Wyeast 1099 Whitbread yeast. The smack pack I got was VERY fresh, only about 2-3 weeks old according to the date on the pack. I activated it, and it was fully swollen over night. Made a 2 L starter, but when I cut open the pack, the yeast came out like a thin toothpaste, lots of fairly solid globs. I pitched to the starter and gave it a very vigorous shake, and re shook whenever I passed it. Didn't really notice any activity, but that might have happened overnight or while at work.
Just decanted it and dumped the slurry into the wort, and there were still a lot of the globs in the slurry.
I have only used Wyeast products, never had a problem with them, but this is the first time I have ever seen this. Should I be worried?

 

[bearcamp]

English strains are known to look "clumpy". I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Skyforger]

Yeast slurries are generally pretty clumpy with highly flocculent strains. The Fullers strain, for instance (1968, or WLP 002) comes out like cottage cheese. The Wyeast site lists Witbread as a medium to highly flocculent yeast, so that's probably what it is. I haven't used that strain before, though; have you? Was it different then?

Either way, I don't think it's anything to worry about. Wyeast QC is quite good, and yeast sometimes has a mind of its own.

 

[lurker18]

No, I have never used this strain, but have used several other Wyeast strains (1010,1056,2565,1084) and have never had anything like this happen. I guess I will find out in the next few hours if everything was alright.

 

[lurker18]

Had the first bubbles blowing into the water bottle withing 6 hours, and a very healthy fermentation going by the next morning. That was 3 1/2 days ago, and the bubbling is already slowing down and yeast is starting to layer out ontop of the sludge, so it looks like everything went as planned.

 

[jayfaustini]

I've noticed similar clumpyness when I used it.
Per George Fix (cerca 1989), Whitbread is a three strain culture. (My understanding is that 1098 is an single strain isolated from the three).
Fix said strain No.3's main role is to chain and floc the other two strains because they are mutants and are very dusty. When I used it and noticed the clumpyness, I just chalked it up to No. 3 doing its job.