I have never had to do this before. Brewing a Black IPA and planning to use harvested yeast from about 2-3 weeks ago. As I pull it from the fridge, it just did not look right. It never really cleared to distinct layers and thru the jar there were some clumps on the top I did not like.
Not really excited about risking 6 hours of work and lots of ingredients, I decided to take two older harvests of the same yeast, mix them and pitch those. Pretty sure these were harvested in Sept and October of this year. Normally I would make a starter, but instead chose to pitch the slurry from the two batches. I expect it will take an extra day or two to take off.
Now with dry lager yeast being available, keep some packets around for such a case - I use 34/70 when something like that happens. You can always get some and add it in a day or so…
Also, time your racking to a lager vessel so that you can harvest fresh yeast and you will be a lot better off.
[quote=“ynotbrusum”]Now with dry lager yeast being available, keep some packets around for such a case - I use 34/70 when something like that happens. You can always get some and add it in a day or so…
Also, time your racking to a lager vessel so that you can harvest fresh yeast and you will be a lot better off.[/quote]
Actually, 24 hours later, no blow off activity but I went ahead and pulled the lid and it is going crazy. 2+ inches of krausen. So it must be my leaky lid. But all looks great.
Good deal. I guess deleted part of my last post. I was trying to say I bet your in for a bit of a lag unless you pitched plenty of yeast. Glad to hear all is well.
I basically pitched the entire washed slurry from two older batches, so combined it appears there was plenty. My beer temp is currently 5 degrees higher than another in the same fridge that is 10 day into primary.
