White Labs Pure Pitch Viability %

[dlowe1992]

Tomorrow I’ll be brewing using liquid yeast for the first time.. WLP013, one of the Pure Pitch packs.

I was planning to make a starter (though admit I’m now short on time!)

Started using an online calculator and wound up confused.com

Going on the QC report, this was manufactured around June 4th. Brewers friend gives it a 19% viability, but White Labs viability calculator puts it at 90% or so.

Cynic in me says this is manufacturer b0II0cks, but then I’m new to this so maybe there’s something in how they package it and how many cells they start with?
I’m only pitching in to 16 litres or so.. do I go with it direct in or a small starter recommended?

 

[YeastFace]

Trust the Whitelabs QC report.

It will give you cells per ml, then times that by the volume (70ml) to get your cell count.

Generally if you're using within 3 months of packaging a Whitelabs pure pitch pouch should be fine to directly pitch into a standard strength ale.

 

[dlowe1992]

Trust the Whitelabs QC report.

It will give you cells per ml, then times that by the volume (70ml) to get your cell count.

Generally if you're using within 3 months of packaging a Whitelabs pure pitch pouch should be fine to directly pitch into a standard strength ale.

Lovely, that’ll do for me.
OG is only 1.043 and around 16 litres of wort, so think I’ll be more than fine

 

[Larse]

I'd say you're fine with just pitching the pouch. I got one recently that was past its date. The supplier told me this before shipping - as it was their last one, I took it and it worked fine.

But because it was past its use by, I made a starter to check it and to make sure I'd enough cells. No problem and because that stuff is very expensive I kept back some of the starter and used it again in a starter and kept back more, so I have now two full pouches of the stuff in my fridge.

The pouches are very useful, I wash them out thoroughly and then fill with steriliser until I can refill them.