So this is going to be an experiment for me and may play with more as back in 2020 I had I had read up on freezing yeast. Back then I had froze a bunch of yeast mainly the Wyeast 2206 but I have others. I did back then use a few frozen yeast packs, that I had made, in a few brews and didn’t have an issue but I kinda stopped and just purchased new. New a few years later I wonder if its any good?

I pulled out a sample of Wyeast 2206 to start to thaw out and collected 1200 mL of water in my flask. I added 50 grams of DME as I want to step this startup up, knowing it was frozen and its only 15 mL. Tossed in 1/2tsp of yeast nutrient and brought to a boil.

After letting it boiler for about 5 minutes I pulled and placed to cool in my sink full of cold water. Once that was complete I pumped some air into the wort to help the yeast grow. Pitched the yeast and tossed on my stir plate.

After a few days no additional yeast and really no activity so I decided to pitch another one vile to see what happens.

After pitching another vile the yeast kicked off and fermented out. Cold crashed, drained some beer off and pitched a 1.040 1000ML starter into it. Taste tested the sample of he beer I drained off and at this point not bad. I decided to go with a nice easy American lite lager to really see if I can get some odd flavors.

Came up with an easy recipe. Pulled 2.5 gallons of water added some salts and brought the water up to 148F(64.4C) and add in the grains in a bag, as it just makes it so easy. Let them rest for an hour, It was tough to hold the 148F(64.4C) but I did it. 8) After the hour, pulled the grains, took a pre-boil gravity sample of 1.035 sg and started the boil, or at least start working my way to a boil. Added the hops per the recipe, pulled a sample for gravity, and I just Ice bath chilled the wort down as quickly as I could, rather then pull out the chiller. Original gravity came in at 1.044 sg Once I got it down to about 60F(15.5C).

Fermentation kicked off rather quickly and looks like it fermented out. Did a slow rise in temperature near the end, best I could tell. One big problem is that stupid orange cap doesn’t get a good seal. Once I saw the krausen drop I let it sit for a few more days and then cold crashed to 38F(3C) for about a week before transferring into a mini keg. Pulled a small sample as I was transferring over to the mini kegs and left on gas to carbonate up. Sample came in at 1.004SG which give me about a 5.25% ABV beer. Took a sample and tasted pretty good but feel there is something there, more to come when the beer is carbonated and colder.

So after carbonating it up and serving it to some friends, this is the worst tasting beer I ever made. It’s really hard to describe what I’m tasting but it taste like, when you put that old school paper in your mouth to make spit balls with. That points me to oxidation but I really don’t think that is it in this case. I did freeze yeast and left it for two years, lol. As you can also tell it was pretty hazy. Glad I only made a small batch. 8). I will try this again over the winter as I have a lot of still frozen yeast.