Yeast starter w/ two-month old smack packs

[brianpablo]

Hi everyone - Planned to make my first yeast starter today to make Northern Brewer's Petite Orange, a dubbel with gravity of 1052. But found that my WYeast 1214 Belgian Abbey ale yeast wasn't inflating quickly enough. Then I realized the manufacture date is the end of February (NB shipped this to me in April, a bit cheek of them maybe?), so the viable cell count is considerably lower than I had expected.

I have a second one that I haven't activated and was going to save for another batch. Should I make a starter with both? Or will one of them do?

I've already prepared 1 liter of DME at around 1.035 in a 1.4 liter glass beaker.

And can I pitch two smack packs into one liter of starter? Or should I pitch the second one into a 1-liter growler and hope for the best?

Thanks!

 

[natasatan]

I just made a starter with a Wyeast #3522 with a date of January 2009 about a month ago. Yes, viability was down, but the starter took off normally. Just had to step it up a few times.

 

[BigFloyd]

If your starter was bigger (say 2-3L), I'd say yes. With a smaller starter, you're not going to see that much of a jump in numbers pitching both packs to make it worthwhile.

 

[monkeybox]

HM. B



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[fatnoah]

Just make a starter with the one you already smacked. A date on January won't hurt the starter too much. This is one of the reasons to make a starter.


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