Yeast Question

[CruzerDood]

Hey Fella's, brewed up another 5 gal last week, and noticed something. I got 2 ingrediant kits when i bought my brew kit in Nov. While doing the boil I was checking over things and noticed my yeast has a exp date of 12-17, thats last year at this time. Is this going to be a prob? As I have 2 of these same date. Instructions say NOT to reconstitute the yeast, but is this something i might want to try on next one? I think I'm doing it right so far, it calls for an OG of 1.034-38 and I was 1.035. I had 1.014 at secondary transfer, instr call for a FG 1.010-14. What say the Xperts? Thx, Al

 

[White Haus Brews]

I would say that if your beer is fermenting you're good to go. For your next one I'd just go ahead and pitch again, just keep in mind if it hasn't started after a day or 2 you might need to find a backup yeast.

 

[J A]

Ingredient kits are notorious for having old or out of date ingredients. Eventually your beer will greatly benefit from starting with fresher ingredients, ideally sourced locally and in the meantime it's a good idea to keep a couple of packets of yeast on hand in case you run into a DOA yeast-pack.

 

[CruzerDood]

Thanks Guys, don't really have any shops close to me, but will get something figured out.

 

[Suga]

The Yeast will probably work fine, but reconstituting it will go a long way toward insuring it does. just pitching it dry can kill as much as 50% Since it is old it's probably already down to 70% or less. You can get slightly or largely off flavors from stressed yeast, which is the most likely scenario. Re-hydrating it will lower the risk of this

 

[GFHomebrew]

I'd whip it into shape in a starter. If no flask clean and boil a large jar preferably over a Litre. Mix your 100g DME 1LT water boil in cleaned pot cool add to cleaned jar once around 20c pitch your tired yeasties tighten jar lid shake the cheap out of it, loosen jar lid spray around lid with star san or cover loosely with alfoil let it ferment for 24-36 hours then pitch the lot into your wort. Should do the trick.

 

[Hawkbox]

The Yeast will probably work fine, but reconstituting it will go a long way toward insuring it does. just pitching it dry can kill as much as 50% Since it is old it's probably already down to 70% or less. You can get slightly or largely off flavors from stressed yeast, which is the most likely scenario. Re-hydrating it will lower the risk of this

I'm going to interject and say I've never seen any evidence of this being a problem, it won't hurt to build something back up but it's not the end of the world not to.

 

[CruzerDood]

Thanks Guys. I'll try suggestions on next batch. What can it hurt, compared to what I've used so far. Have put a few bottles in fridge for a few days, don't seem to taste bad but a little sweet I think for having a low ABV ( 2.25-2.48 reading ).Thx, Al

 

[Suga]

I'm going to interject and say I've never seen any evidence of this being a problem, it won't hurt to build something back up but it's not the end of the world not to.

You're right it probably wouldn't hurt not to, But definitely won't hurt to do it and only takes a few minutes.

I'm still very new to this. My very first brew was a Mr Beer kit that was 4 years past it's best by date and I had no idea at the time about how the process really worked. The results was a flavorful flat beer. By that i mean lots of flavor but flat tasting at the same time. It carbonated ok but had very ltttle head and was likely oxygenated. I cannot for the life of me reproduce the flavors and I am now thinking they were the product of stressed yeast and old HME.
So anyway my suggestion is at least hydrate it if not do a starter.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Danstar/Ferments advice about rehydrating dry yeast has changed recently .They believe there's so little difference in cell death between rehydrating and not that they now recommend pitching into about 20% of the wort while it's warmer, letting it sit for a while and then adding the rest of the wort (which sounds like rehydrating by stealth).

This is more for the commercial brewers who don't enjoy rehydrating a kilo or so of the yeast. It's much easier for them to run a small amount of relatively warm wort onto the yeast then continue chilling the rest.

There is also a small contamination risk with rehydrating.

Basically it seems that dry yeast is now good enough that it doesn't really matter how you add it, just that you add enough and that it's in contact with the liquid.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

what I've always done is add half my wort then the yeast the the other half of wort, shake then stir

 

[Bubba Wade]

If the dry yeast has been refrigerated the entire time, there shouldn't be much problem. I've used yeasts 18 months past due with no problems.