Yeast near expiration date from local homebrew supply store

[wsmith1625]

Today I went to my local HBS to get a package of liquid yeast for my brew day this weekend. I told him which yeast I needed and he came back to the counter with 2 old packages which he sold to me for the price of one pack. The best by dates on the packs are 3/29/23 and the White Labs Yeastman site confirmed they were packaged on 10/3/22. This shop did this to me once before and both times I left not knowing if it was a fair deal. Should I continue buying his old yeast or should I ask for a fresher package next time?

 

[wepeeler]

Make a starter with both smack packs, and you'll be fine. Yeast is very resilient. You're just starting with less than an ideal number of cells. The starter will build them back up.

 

[wsmith1625]

I'm definitely doing a starter and the cell count should be fine on brew day. I'm more interested in if this is a fair practice by the brew shop. Am I getting a fair deal or is he taking advantage of me being willing to purchase the old yeast?

 

[IslandLizard]

Liquid yeast we buy in retail shops is, on average, 2-4 months old, with the exp. date best by date being set at 6 months after packaging, generally. We don't know anything about how it was handled, shipped, etc. So that's the larger, unknown variable.

Therefore making starters is recommended, most importantly to:
a) prove viability,
b) increase vitality, and
c) ramp up cell count.

So, getting 2 packs that "expire" tomorrow for the price of one is a fair deal, and it gets you your yeast, with few reasonable alternatives.
BTW, what was that price? Just curious.

White Labs' PurePitch packaging (sleeves*) is very good, yeast stays in better condition, with only about 6% decline per month on average, instead of the industry standard of 10%.
* I have no experience with or details on the PurePitch Next Generation "mini bottles."

 

[PCABrewing]

I'm definitely doing a starter and the cell count should be fine on brew day. I'm more interested in if this is a fair practice by the brew shop. Am I getting a fair deal or is he taking advantage of me being willing to purchase the old yeast?

Well he is not concealing the fact right?
As long as he isn't just shoving it across the counter, not saying anything and hoping you don't notice I don't question his ethics.
Plus the date hasn't passed yet and the manufacturer says it should be good to go through that date.

Look at it this way, he is being honest and you are helping a small business who may be experiencing slow inventory turn while taking a pretty small risk.
He is probably not covering the cost on two packs for the price of one.
If it doesn't workout for you he will probably make it right, just a hunch.

 

[wepeeler]

I'm definitely doing a starter and the cell count should be fine on brew day. I'm more interested in if this is a fair practice by the brew shop. Am I getting a fair deal or is he taking advantage of me being willing to purchase the old yeast?

It's not ideal, as I would be turned away. But at least he tried to make up the fact that's old by giving you 2 packs for 1.

 

[wsmith1625]

Liquid yeast we buy in retail shops is, on average, 2-4 months old, with the exp. date best by date being set at 6 months after packaging, generally. We don't know anything about how it was handled, shipped, etc. So that's the larger, unknown variable.

Therefore making starters is recommended, most importantly to:
a) prove viability,
b) increase vitality, and
c) ramp up cell count.

So, getting 2 packs that "expire" tomorrow for the price of one is a fair deal, and it gets you your yeast, with few reasonable alternatives.
BTW, what was that price? Just curious.

White Labs' PurePitch packaging (sleeves*) is very good, yeast stays in better condition, with only about 6% decline per month on average, instead of the industry standard of 10%.
* I have no experience with or details on the PurePitch Next Generation "mini bottles."

They're White Labs PurePitch WLP080 and I paid $10.99 for the both of them. The price was comparable to the online retailers.

 

[wsmith1625]

Well he is not concealing the fact right?
As long as he isn't just shoving it across the counter, not saying anything and hoping you don't notice I don't question his ethics.
Plus the date hasn't passed yet and the manufacturer says it should be good to go through that date.

Look at it this way, he is being honest and you are helping a small business who may be experiencing slow inventory turn while taking a pretty small risk.
He is probably not covering the cost on two packs for the price of one.
If it doesn't workout for you he will probably make it right, just a hunch.

Yes, he was upfront and honest on both occasions. Basically I'm helping him by taking his older inventory and he gives me a second pack to compensate for the lower viability. Now that I know there's no downside for me, I'll gladly do it again.

 

[Pennine]

If you actually got pure pitch they are selling for $15 to $16 anywhere else. You got a deal, your doing a starter anyway I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[IslandLizard]

The price was comparable to the online retailers.

And without incurring shipping charges and possibly yeast damage from shipping during more extreme weather.

 

[RM-MN]

The "Best by" date is set with an assumed storage condition. If your LHBS has better storage practice than average the older yeast may have plenty of live cells and you got a real bargain. You'll be able to tell as soon as you make a starter with one.

That brings up the "proper pitch rate". Brulosophy did an experiment with pitch rates and whether you agree or disagree with his methods the experiment showed little difference in the final outcome with wildly varying pitch rates. Everyone knows that you need big starters for making a lager but Gordon Strong has said that he often makes lagers without a starter, simply pitching a single package of liquid yeast. You can do your own search for that info, I've done the search as many times as I am willing to when people question that. Do some searching or do your own experimentation on pitch rates.

 

[wsmith1625]

The "Best by" date is set with an assumed storage condition. If your LHBS has better storage practice than average the older yeast may have plenty of live cells and you got a real bargain. You'll be able to tell as soon as you make a starter with one.

That brings up the "proper pitch rate". Brulosophy did an experiment with pitch rates and whether you agree or disagree with his methods the experiment showed little difference in the final outcome with wildly varying pitch rates. Everyone knows that you need big starters for making a lager but Gordon Strong has said that he often makes lagers without a starter, simply pitching a single package of liquid yeast. You can do your own search for that info, I've done the search as many times as I am willing to when people question that. Do some searching or do your own experimentation on pitch rates.

I'm sure the yeast was stored properly at the store, but just due to the age of the packets I'm sure viability is not optimal. I ended up doing a 2L starter which was probably overkill. This morning everything is looking good.

 

[odie]

most expiration dates are VERY conservative.

I've gotten a white labs yeast that was well over a year expired. direct pitched, a bit slow to start but made great beer. Been harvesting and reusing that same yeast several times now. It's one of my more popular beers for the guys.

now, if we were talking milk....

 

[Northern_Brewer]

This shop did this to me once before and both times I left not knowing if it was a fair deal.

As others have said, he was probably losing money on the deal, but at least from his POV he's recovering most of his costs. So from that perspective, you're the winner here. But there's a deeper question that if you want him to keep stocking liquid yeast, then he needs to keep making a profit on it, and managing the oldish inventory is part of that. So that's a win for both of you.

OK, so in terms of cells/$ it's no different to buying a single pack that's a few months younger. So you could regard it as no more than "fair" if it's two packs of the same strain, but it's a great deal if it's two different strains as it's like buying them half price. In fact a lot of the strains in my fridge were originally discounted as past BB date, and I've even revived yeast that was 4 years past BB date - there's always some left. I don't recommend 4 year yeast as a regular thing, but it shows it can work.

Dry yeast is even tougher, I've used some that was 20 years old.

 

[wsmith1625]

As others have said, he was probably losing money on the deal, but at least from his POV he's recovering most of his costs. So from that perspective, you're the winner here. But there's a deeper question that if you want him to keep stocking liquid yeast, then he needs to keep making a profit on it, and managing the oldish inventory is part of that. So that's a win for both of you.

OK, so in terms of cells/$ it's no different to buying a single pack that's a few months younger. So you could regard it as no more than "fair" if it's two packs of the same strain, but it's a great deal if it's two different strains as it's like buying them half price. In fact a lot of the strains in my fridge were originally discounted as past BB date, and I've even revived yeast that was 4 years past BB date - there's always some left. I don't recommend 4 year yeast as a regular thing, but it shows it can work.

Dry yeast is even tougher, I've used some that was 20 years old.

Great answer! You addressed all of my concerns. Thanks!

 

[VikeMan]

Yeast is dying every day in the package. There's nothing special or magical about the "best by" date, other than that it allows us to calculate the packaging date. For a best by date to be somewhat meaningful in and of itself, the manufacturer would have to know the volume and gravity of the wort you plan to pitch the yeast into. (And they would have to make assumptions about your preferred pitch rate and about storage conditions.)

Personally, I would have been pretty happy to get two for one pricing.

 

[day_trippr]

I could easily be off because I don't see many other folks' starters, but that starter seems rather dark for being "done", at least going by my metrics after 24 hours...

Cheers!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The main factor is usually how hard you sterilise the starter wort beforehand - the one on the left looks more "30 minutes in a pressure cooker", the one on the right isn't pressure cooked at all?

 

[day_trippr]

"Pressure cooked"? That would be me, not my starters

I boil the water in a kitchen pot, set it in the sink, add DME and stir, then lid and fill sink with cold water and let it get to pitching temp, dump wort and the yeast in an e-flask and stir in a couple liters of O2 with a wand and it's ready for the stir plate with a foam stopper. 24 hours later it gets crashed in the fridge until the next brew day morning.

I've never had an evidently infected beer...

Cheers!

 

[wsmith1625]

I could easily be off because I don't see many other folks' starters, but that starter seems rather dark for being "done", at least going by my metrics after 24 hours...

View attachment 816417 View attachment 816418

Cheers!

Haha, no that wasn't my finished starter. It was just getting started. Lol

 

[wsmith1625]

The main factor is usually how hard you sterilise the starter wort beforehand - the one on the left looks more "30 minutes in a pressure cooker", the one on the right isn't pressure cooked at all?

I boil for 10 minutes. Seems to be working okay. Never used a pressure cooker.

 

[Bobby_M]

If you actually got pure pitch they are selling for $15 to $16 anywhere else. You got a deal, your doing a starter anyway I wouldn't worry about it.

There's purepitch and purepitch next gen. I sell the former for $8.99 and the latter for 13.99. In my shop, I consider Omega (and wyeast when I sold it) to be "old" at 4 months and it would go in the $1.99 discount bin even though the labs would say it's good for 6 months.

For Whitelabs, either purepitch variety, I sell it full price all the way up to the best by day because that packaging holds on to yeast viability for an exceptionally longer time than the others.

With 70% viability, you got 140% of a single new pack between the two of them.

 

[MicroMickey]

If you are really serious about pitching a strong yeast starter, notice that most of the pix in this thread contain a stir plate. I couldn't imagine how much difference such a contraption could make in my brewing until I got one of my own. I've resurrected smack packs nearly a year out of date. It's great for culturing bottle dregs too.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If you are really serious about pitching a strong yeast starter, notice that most of the pix in this thread contain a stir plate. I couldn't imagine how much difference such a contraption could make in my brewing until I got one of my own. I've resurrected smack packs nearly a year out of date. It's great for culturing bottle dregs too.

Just to be clear, I revived yeast four years past their BB date with no stir plate, just the occasional shake as I went by my airing cupboard.

 

[beren]

If you are really serious about pitching a strong yeast starter, notice that most of the pix in this thread contain a stir plate. I couldn't imagine how much difference such a contraption could make in my brewing until I got one of my own. I've resurrected smack packs nearly a year out of date. It's great for culturing bottle dregs too.

Same. Just pitched a 1028 best by last may. Thick as yogurt.

 

[catdaddy6676]

The viability of yeast at any age is always amazing to me. I have had jars of saved yeast in my fridge for two years and they start up well with a bit of time and patience. Saturday I started some San Francisco Lager yeast (wlp810) that was nearly three years since it was last used. It was waiting patiently in the cold, dark recesses of my refrigerator until I called for it!

 

[beren]

To be fair I started with a small weak starter and built it up, and it was 3-4 days before it got "chunky"

 

[dethbunny]

I think we've all fairly well established that old yeast can still be good yeast (and a good deal!) but just to beat that particular horse a little bit more: many of us have stepped up and fermented from bottle dregs at one time or another. If that doesn't prove once and for all that building up a starter works, I don't know what possibly would.

 

[jambop]

I don't get it at all. I think you got a bargain there. If the seller has put an expiry date on the pack then the conclusion has to be up until that date the yeast in that pack, if stored correctly, will be good and adhere to whatever standard they set in the specs ? If not why buy liquid yeast? Dried yeast has a best before date at which, the manufacturers say , the contents of the package will meet their specifications why should liquid yeast be any different ... you are paying a high price to buy it ! Yeast is a resilient organism I am sure what you have bought will be fine.

 

[rtstrider]

In this case I think you may have made too large of a starter for the older packs. I personally would've babied it. Starting with 500ml 1.020 to wake it up. From there I would've stepped it up to 1L 1.040 to build up the cell count a bit then 2L 1.040 to beef it up a bit more and save some slurry for later. You may have been fine going with 1L 1.020 even. That starter does not appear to have taken off yet from the pics. I could be wrong though. All of my starters begin like yours looks then end up nice and milky, sometimes with a nice krausen, on the stir plate. Keep us posted on the starter!

 

[wsmith1625]

In this case I think you may have made too large of a starter for the older packs. I personally would've babied it. Starting with 500ml 1.020 to wake it up. From there I would've stepped it up to 1L 1.040 to build up the cell count a bit then 2L 1.040 to beef it up a bit more and save some slurry for later. You may have been fine going with 1L 1.020 even. That starter does not appear to have taken off yet from the pics. I could be wrong though. All of my starters begin like yours looks then end up nice and milky, sometimes with a nice krausen, on the stir plate. Keep us posted on the starter!

The 2 liter starter was probably too much as all the calculators said I could have gone closer to 1 liter. It did take off on me though and the krausen became a bit of a problem. First time I had it overflow the flask. When all was said and done, I think I had a good cell count for my 5.5 gal batch. Active fermentation started in under 24 hours and looks near completed now. I'm gonna give it a minimum 2 weeks before I keg it.

 

[rtstrider]

The 2 liter starter was probably too much as all the calculators said I could have gone closer to 1 liter. It did take off on me though and the krausen became a bit of a problem. First time I had it overflow the flask. When all was said and done, I think I had a good cell count for my 5.5 gal batch. Active fermentation started in under 24 hours and looks near completed now. I'm gonna give it a minimum 2 weeks before I keg it.

Welp if it took off can't argue with that. Glad to hear it worked out. 080 is an awesome blend!