Out of date yeast

[Ricardoslayer]

Hi, has anyone used out of date yeast?
I have 3 packs of Lallemand East Coast that expired in June. Seems a shame to chuck it. Obviously it's been kept in the fridge.

 

[phildo79]

I suspect that they will be fine. I bought a 500g yeast brick that only had about a year left on the bbe date. I used it well beyond that. I kept mine in the freezer though.

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi, has anyone used out of date yeast?
I have 3 packs of Lallemand East Coast that expired in June. Seems a shame to chuck it. Obviously it's been kept in the fridge.

Dried yeast seems not to go off- especially if kept well. I wouldn't be surprised if a ten-year-old packet was still viable. And, no, I'm not kidding.
Just to put my money where my mouth is, I've got a Fermentis T-58, expiry August 2007 in the fridge. For three years of its life it wasn't in a fridge. I'm going to try and make a starter with it tomorrow- out of curiosity. If it works, I'll decide what kind of beer I want to make with it. I'll keep the forum informed.

 

[Ricardoslayer]

Thanks guys

 

[thegrantickle]

Aye it's gonna be totally fine. Of it was 6 months put of date I'd maybe consider making a starter. Probably not though.

 

[An Ankoù]

As promised:
The first shows the manufacturing date and the BB date on the back of the sachet. The second, rehydrating the yeast. It smelled a little bit musty when I opened the packet, but after rehydration it was proper barmy. The third: Amazing. This is only 90 minutes later and after a bit of a swirl. The yeast is clearly viable.
I'll brew a small batch with this, just to see whether there are any off flavours.
THIS SACHET IS 14 YEARS OLD!!!!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

T-58 is a bit of a nutter to be fair. And very biotransformative - if you have some grapefruity hops like Chinook to hand, it turns them into more of a lime flavour.

I've made bread with dry yeast that had spent 20 years at ambient temperature in the back of a cupboard, straight out of the packet, no starter or anything. It didn't rise as much as fresh yeast, but had maybe 50% activity.

Which is in line with the general rule of thumb, that dry yeast loses activity at <5%/year, more like 2-3% in the fridge.

Going back to the OP, the only thing to worry about a bit is that assuming the OP meant Lallemand New England, it doesn't like being dried so has a much lower cell count than other yeasts so you want to be fairly generous in pitching it, regardless of whether it's fresh or not. You can make a starter but then you lose one of the big advantages of dry yeasts, that they don't need aerating. (yeast don't need oxygen for respiration when in wort, they only need it to make sterols to make cell membranes which they need for replication, dry yeast are grown so that they have just about enough sterols for the generations of replication they typically do in wort)

 

[MrRook]

My last batch was fermented by a Muntons dated Nov 2016.

 

[Ricardoslayer]

As promised:
The first shows the manufacturing date and the BB date on the back of the sachet. The second, rehydrating the yeast. It smelled a little bit musty when I opened the packet, but after rehydration it was proper barmy. The third: Amazing. This is only 90 minutes later and after a bit of a swirl. The yeast is clearly viable.
I'll brew a small batch with this, just to see whether there are any off flavours.
THIS SACHET IS 14 YEARS OLD!!!!

Wow that's impressive stuff.
14 years
Think my 2 month old stuff will be fine.
Cheers

 

[An Ankoù]

The reason I've let this sachet hang about for 15 years is because I've never really figured out what to do with it.
HAS ANYBODY GOT A RECIPE THAT BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN THIS YEAST?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

The reason I've let this sachet hang about for 15 years is because I've never really figured out what to do with it.
HAS ANYBODY GOT A RECIPE THAT BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN THIS YEAST?
Thanks in advance.

Belgian Wit maybe.

 

[St00]

I've just used T-58 for the first time as my Kolsch yeast didn't start fermenting. It was from 2013.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Many (a majority?) of English breweries use yeasts that are slightly phenolic like T-58, in particular they're associated with Yorkshire Squares. So a Yorkshire bitter or Harveys clone.

Allegedly it's the yeast used by Struise who make some of the very best big dark Belgians so you could go down the quad route - could be your Christmas beer?

As a warning - it sets off like a train, it's one of the quickest yeasts to get going I know so use a blow-off if you've got one.

 

[An Ankoù]

Many (a majority?) of English breweries use yeasts that are slightly phenolic like T-58, in particular they're associated with Yorkshire Squares. So a Yorkshire bitter or Harveys clone.

Oh, I wasn't expecting that. Ok, A Yorkshire bitter it is then. Thanks for the tip, I didn't know Yorkshire Square yeasts were phenolic, but it's a long time since I've tasted a pint of TT or Black Sheep.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's a tribute to how successful White Labs and Wyeast have been in telling people what English yeast "are", but you only have to look at the Brewlab collection to see how many are phenolic. But eg WLP037 Yorkshire Square is a complete clove monster if you don't aerate it, Lost & Grounded have used it to make a "Yorkshire Saison".

The phenolics in commercial bitters are pretty subtle, you have to look for them - I suspect that's because the square system suppresses the phenolics through aeration. But I've certainly picked them up at low levels in good pints of cask Harveys (whose yeast came from John Smiths) and Sam Smiths. Not sure about Taylors though.

Also worth noting that T-58 is a close relative of Windsor and S-33, it's best thought of as a (weakly) phenolic version of those two. So don't expect great attenuation.

 

[An Ankoù]

Anybody interested in yeast history, here's some really out of date yeast.
This article makes for fascinating reading: The treasure inside beer lost in a shipwreck 120 years ago
What fascinated me is that, as far as I know, beer bottles of that era were sealed with corks and then perhaps wax on top of the cork. If some of the bottles were still pourable and produced a head after 120 years then I shall take corks more seriously.

 

[DavidDetroit]

I'd use yeast that's a little bit out of date but that hasn't happened yet. It's so cheap, relatively, that I don't see a reason for doing that and I also don't want to be guessing whether my batch of beer is being treated properly.

 

[Griff097]

When I first started I bought a load of gear and never got started, the yeast was years out of date when I started and it was fine.

 

[An Ankoù]

I'd use yeast that's a little bit out of date but that hasn't happened yet. It's so cheap, relatively, that I don't see a reason for doing that and I also don't want to be guessing whether my batch of beer is being treated properly.

Quite right. Why take unnecessary risks with a batch of beer and a day's work.
Some of us just like to push the boundaries to see what can be done just for the hell of it and, more often than not, it's with small batches.

 

[Ricardoslayer]

I'd use yeast that's a little bit out of date but that hasn't happened yet. It's so cheap, relatively, that I don't see a reason for doing that and I also don't want to be guessing whether my batch of beer is being treated properly.

I just try not to waste things unnecessarily. But you're right it is relatively cheap.