Whitelabs.. vails nearing best before......

[Deebee]

Hi all.

I had some yeast delivered to me at the weekend. I aim to use it in a big beer in november and got it sent with my last order of the year.

One of the White labs vials says best before 25 september, and the other is the end og October.

I was aiming t make a starter with these at the end of october and wondered if thee will still be viable. I aim to make 2x 1.5 litres in order to guarentee I will have enough yeast for a 18 litre RIS with estimated OG of around the 1100 mark .

Should I do this.. or should I use it before and get some more?

Thanks

[mysterio]

A fail safe way to get the best out of older vials, or even ones that have past their date, is to treat them like a slant and step them up. So make up the starter in a smaller volume, then after 48 hours step up to the full starter size which should be 5 - 10 x the size of the original step.

So 200ml initially, then after a couple of days pour on 1.5 - 2 L of fresh wort, then you're good go pitch that stepped starter within 12 hours. Always best to make sure the starter is well aerated or stirred to get the maximum growth.

[EoinMag]

Another vote here for stepping up the vial to a starter, I've done it with stuff well past it's best before. Once it has some viable yeast, just use it as a starting point and step it up then keep it and split it. When it comes time to make the actual beer then start a new starter using some of that stuff and then step it up until you have a starter the size that is suitable.

[Deebee]

It's only a best before date.

Really old vials I have started off in a couple of hundred mls of wort before stepping up to 1 litre or so, otherwise I just make the starter as usual and expect to wait a little longer for it to get going.

So in your opinion Chris a Vial only 4-5 weeks after its BB date should just take a little longer?

meaning that if i give it a week prior to brewing it should be enough?

as always thanks.