Found some Pac Man that i had stored in an old white labs vial that is at least a year old… smelled ok, but looked almost dark greyish not quite the brown/tan that most yeast looks like. Mixed up a small starter on my stir plate to see if it will go anywhere.
The real question is that even if there are enough viable cells to get it going and stepping it up a few times would you use it?
I had a old smack pack of 1056 and it was a greenish brown color made a starter out of it but it was toast after 2 days not a single bubble. Had not been stored properly friend of mine got his first kit in the mail tossed it in a closet for 8 months never paid attention to the big orange sticker on the side of the box that says to refridgerate the yeast. What a turd.
[quote=“robotninja”]Found some Pac Man that i had stored in an old white labs vial that is at least a year old… smelled ok, but looked almost dark greyish not quite the brown/tan that most yeast looks like. Mixed up a small starter on my stir plate to see if it will go anywhere.
The real question is that even if there are enough viable cells to get it going and stepping it up a few times would you use it?[/quote]
Sure. Maybe make a small 2 gallon test batch with hops, etc. to see if it still makes good beer.
When they start to turn grey/dark grey/black, they are dead. Cell walls rupture, all sorts of meaty protein and gunk seeps out into whatever solution they are in.
As mvsawyer says, maybe make a test batch out of it just to see if it works after several step ups, but for the quality/quantity of beer made : time spent brewing ratios I tend to shoot for, I would spend $2 on an envelope of Notty or US05.
ACTUALLY, you are probably WAY better off buying a bottle-conditioned bomber of Rogue and bottle harvesting some yeast if you want to experiment with stepping up.
[quote=“Pietro”]
ACTUALLY, you are probably WAY better off buying a bottle-conditioned bomber of Rogue and bottle harvesting some yeast if you want to experiment with stepping up.[/quote]
I had thought of this too, I do have a bottle of double dead guy that is going to be consumed tonight for “research” but being a bigger beer i thought that it may not have a lot of yeast available.
What size starter would you reccomend if i was going to attempt culturing from this bottle?
[quote=“robotninja”][quote=“Pietro”]
ACTUALLY, you are probably WAY better off buying a bottle-conditioned bomber of Rogue and bottle harvesting some yeast if you want to experiment with stepping up.[/quote]
I had thought of this too, I do have a bottle of double dead guy that is going to be consumed tonight for “research” but being a bigger beer i thought that it may not have a lot of yeast available.
What size starter would you reccomend if i was going to attempt culturing from this bottle?[/quote]
500ml of about 1.020 is where I’d start. Then 1L normal grav. then step up as if you started with a smack pack.
[quote=“mvsawyer”][quote=“robotninja”][quote=“Pietro”]
ACTUALLY, you are probably WAY better off buying a bottle-conditioned bomber of Rogue and bottle harvesting some yeast if you want to experiment with stepping up.[/quote]
I had thought of this too, I do have a bottle of double dead guy that is going to be consumed tonight for “research” but being a bigger beer i thought that it may not have a lot of yeast available.
What size starter would you reccomend if i was going to attempt culturing from this bottle?[/quote]
500ml of about 1.020 is where I’d start. Then 1L normal grav. then step up as if you started with a smack pack.[/quote]
this. you want to start bottle-harvested yeast on Starter Lite. They have a bit of a hangover.
