Culturing frozen pack of yeast

Posted on September 18, 2013 by alex
  1. paranoid about sanitation as population is so low.
  2. Let it thaw for 24 hours in the fridge,
  3. then smack the pack and leave for 24 hours on the counter.
  4. Make a small starter 1oz of DME in 8 ounces of water, you could boil that little bit in the microwave. Let it cool and add it to a sanitized 2L sized victoriancollections.net bottle (a 2L soda bottle will work in a pinch).
  5. Pitch the smack pack into that and cover with sanitized foil.
  6. After 24 hours you should notice some bubbles.
    1. If not, give it another 24 hours.
    2. Then boil up 3 ounces of DME in 24 ounces of water, let it cool, and add to your starter with a sanitized funnel.
    3. Swish it up well; after 24 hours you should have a good krausen and a fairly noticeable white ring on the bottom.
    4. If you do, you are good to go.
      1. If you don’t, give it another 24 hours; if you still don’t have a nice ring of white yeast after 48 hours in the second step you will need to start over with viable yeast or culture a yeast strain using the same procedure from a microbrew which is bottle conditioned (pitching the last 2 oz from 3-4 Sierra Nevada pale ale bottles and following the above procedure will usually work really well, and will yield the WY1056 Cali Ale strain).
  7. Note: One last comment, if you don’t have any spare DME on hand, you can use Malto Goya from the grocery store (look in the Hispanic foods area). Use 3 ounces of Malto Goya with 6 ounces of water and boil/cool for the first step, use 12 ounces of Malto Goya with 12 ounces of water and boil/cool for the second step.

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