Wyeast Smack Pack didn't bust and now isn't activating!! Help

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
May 25, 2005
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Location
Portland, Oregon Beervana!
Ok, I know I saw a thread regarding the Wyeast Smack Packs, but I have a slightly different problem.
a. The pack never broke when 'smacked'.
b. I pitched the yeast and activator into a small pot on the stove for about 5 minutes at medium temperature to HURRY the process.
c. Pitched the yeast at approximately 80 degrees and now at 24 hours later have not had any activation.

What should I do??

Can I throw another yeast pack in like a White Labs liquid vial?

Or do I scrap this whole $40.00 batch?

Thanks in advance.
 
chicagobluesman said:
Ok, I know I saw a thread regarding the Wyeast Smack Packs, but I have a slightly different problem.
a. The pack never broke when 'smacked'.
b. I pitched the yeast and activator into a small pot on the stove for about 5 minutes at medium temperature to HURRY the process.
c. Pitched the yeast at approximately 80 degrees and now at 24 hours later have not had any activation.

What should I do??

Can I throw another yeast pack in like a White Labs liquid vial?

Or do I scrap this whole $40.00 batch?

Thanks in advance.

It will probably take some more time, but the yeast will eventually take off I'd suspect. All that is in that smack-pack is some yeast nutrient, so once that yeast finds the sugar in your wort, IT'S ON!
If it doesn't do anything for another 24 hours, I'd go buy another dose of yeast and pitch again.
Your beer will probably end up tasting like beer. :D
 
you pitched it on the stove!?!?! thats probably part of the problem. too much heat will quickly and easily kill your yeast. you might have fried it. i made that mistake on my first batch by letting the vile ride around on the floor of my Jeep for about 3 hours. Now i take a small cooler over to the home brew shop to transport my hops and yeast back home. (even though its not even ten minutes from my house.
 
92greenyj said:
you pitched it on the stove!?!?! thats probably part of the problem. too much heat will quickly and easily kill your yeast. you might have fried it. i made that mistake on my first batch by letting the vile ride around on the floor of my Jeep for about 3 hours. Now i take a small cooler over to the home brew shop to transport my hops and yeast back home. (even though its not even ten minutes from my house.

If you are brining one of the Wyeast smack packs home, and it's less than 10 minutes, why are you worried about putting it in a cooler? I mail order my stuff; it usually is shipped in the afternoon and I get it the next day. The packs I order contain the smack-packs. They arrive the next day, and I put them in the refrigerator then. I have never had any problems with them.
 
On the stove? Ouch... what temp did this bring the yeast to? As stated in another reply, this can kill the yeast.
As far as scraping the batch... nah, pitch another yeast in there.
I had a smack pack which never broke. I made a starter using the nutrient pack inside but before I put the actual yeast into the starter, I cooled the starter down to about 75f.
 
Ok. Thanks for the responses. I really don't know what I was thinking, but I heated up the yeast and mix in a small pot on the stove for about 5 minutes thinking this would help 'accelerate' the activation since the pack didn't break.
But now at over 36 hours from pitching into the wort, still ZERO activity.
I'm going to pitch a vial of White Labs this morning and see if that kicks it into gear.
Cheers.
 
bikebryan said:
If you are brining one of the Wyeast smack packs home, and it's less than 10 minutes, why are you worried about putting it in a cooler? I mail order my stuff; it usually is shipped in the afternoon and I get it the next day. The packs I order contain the smack-packs. They arrive the next day, and I put them in the refrigerator then. I have never had any problems with them.

who said anything about smack packs? We use White Labs liquid yeast. it comes in a capped test tube type container. and the main reason i stick it in the little cooler is because most of the time we end up being out for at least an hour going around getting other things. (like propane for our burner and such)
 
92greenyj said:
who said anything about smack packs? We use White Labs liquid yeast. it comes in a capped test tube type container. and the main reason i stick it in the little cooler is because most of the time we end up being out for at least an hour going around getting other things. (like propane for our burner and such)


How nice for you. I'm glad that you use White Labs vials. However.....

This whole thread was about Wyeast smack packs - please look at the original post, or even the THREAD TITLE!!!!! You never mentioned you weren't using Wyeast packs - in fact, your post never mentioned what brand you were talking about. It was a safe assumption, given the what the thread was about, that you were talking about how you treat you Wyeast packs.
 
You never mentioned you weren't using Wyeast packs - in fact, your post never mentioned what brand you were talking about.

Actually, if you read again, he said "vial" which would indicate that he was referring to White Labs.

But who gives a crap....(liquid) yeast is yeast, and you're getting us off topic.

Back on topic: Don't heat your f#@%&* yeast on the stove!!!!! :D

I bet you'll get some action when you pitch the fresh vial.

Sam
 
Sam75 said:
Actually, if you read again, he said "vial" which would indicate that he was referring to White Labs.

But who gives a crap....(liquid) yeast is yeast, and you're getting us off topic.

Back on topic: Don't heat your f#@%&* yeast on the stove!!!!! :D

I bet you'll get some action when you pitch the fresh vial.

Sam

exactly. liquid yeast is liquid yeast. hell id imagine even dried yeast would die if ya heat it up enough. I was simply stating that liquid yeast needs to be protected from high heat situations. sure it may not be necessary to transport yeast home in a cooler, but it doesnt hurt to take extra precautions when dealing with the ingredient that makes beer beer. without yeast, youd just be drinking budweiser, er, i mean flavored water
 
Sam75 said:
Actually, if you read again, he said "vial" which would indicate that he was referring to White Labs.

But who gives a crap....(liquid) yeast is yeast, and you're getting us off topic.

Back on topic: Don't heat your f#@%&* yeast on the stove!!!!! :D

I bet you'll get some action when you pitch the fresh vial.

Sam

No, read the original message again!

He originally tried using a Wyeast Smack Pack, but the inner pouch didn't break. He then asked if he could add another liquid yeast, like a White Labs Vial. So the original problem had nothing to do with White Labs Yeast.

However, I do agree that heating it up on the stove was a dumb move.
 
92greenyj said:
without yeast, youd just be drinking budweiser, er, i mean flavored water

It seems that even with yeast a lot of people are still drinking ButtWiper.

I don't drink Bud, except in its Czech form. I went to Prague and Ceske Budejovice (the town of Budweis) the last weekend I lived in Germany and shipped 2 cases of Budvar back with my furniture. :D I lived in Germany for 9 years and rarely do I drink an American beer unless it's special. I do like Blue Moon Wit whenever I am on travel.

I liked the saying one of the guys on the site said: "The big guys spend more on advertising than ingredients".

Funny stuff.
 
Back
Top