Freeze your Yeast update

flintman February 14, 2022 in My Yeast Experiment - 4 Minutes

Back about a year now, a few days over, I had posted about Freezing Yeast , now since I had done this I haven’t used that yeast to much as I was brewing many different styles. With that said today I was thinking, Hmm I should see if that frozen yeast is still good. Let see

So I took 800 mL of water and added 40G of DME to my 2L flask. I added a pinch of yeast nutrient and a few hop pellets that I had, Hallertau Mittelfrüh. Boiled for 20 mins and chilled

After chilling I pitched the vile of WLP 029. It was the first vile I pulled 8). It worked out I used a German hop too. 8). After pitching,put on my stir plate and let it go. Will check back and feed more DME to build up this starter. I probably won’t end up using it but wanted to taste it to see if there is any off flavors and the yeast is still good. 8)..

Waited a day and 1/2 and brought 500ML and 50G of DME to a boil for 10 minutes and chilled. Added this to my start to start to build up the colony. I’m getting some activity but its hard to tell, I should get a stopper for the top and add an air lock to see the activity easier.

Activity started up pretty quick after added in the additiona 500mL of wort.

After another few days performed the same steps again and added in another 500mL 1.040 wort to the flash we not have about 1800mL and fermenting away. Few more days and I will cold crash and taste what we have to ensure no off flavors in this starter.

After about a week it was complete and tossed it in my fridge to cold crash.

Crashed it out and poured a sample to taste. With that said I do not detect anything funky and seems to have fermented out.

With all that said I haven’t been freezing any yeast and I really should as this was very easy to do just time is needed. Last year when I tried to being some of these samples back I think I rushed and didn’t allow time for the step feed during my yeast starter. This caused me to toss a 5 gallon batch. Overall not a bad way to save some money but in the end is it worth it? $10 for yeast for the batch and know its good to go, or some time and step feed it and don’t stress it and let the numbers build up. I guess if I have the time I will start freezing some of the common strains I use.