8 replies to this topic

[LeftyMPfrmDE]

I made a starter of WLP820 the other day, it was had a month before its expiration date. I got home from work this morning, and there was a smell of bad cheese in the kitchen; I put my nose to the flask, and gagged; hard. never had this problem with this yeast, or any yeast for that matter. sanitation or mishandling on my part was outta the question- I also made a starter of some WLP029 with the same batch of starter wort. I just got back from the brew shop with some S-23 for a backup.

 

so did this ever happen to any of youse guys? I can only assume bad handling from the supplier to the brewshop; never had this issue from my local.

[positiveContact]

had less than high vitality packs but never full on bad.

[HVB]

I recently had a pack of Omega that formed a pellicle in the flask.  I boiled in the flask so it was fine.  Grated, the pack was old but it was very strange.

[denny]

Nope, never had that.  FWIW, I use Wyeast 99.9% of the time.

[LeftyMPfrmDE]

Nope, never had that.  FWIW, I use Wyeast 99.9% of the time.

Wyeast isn't carried at my local- i have to travel across state lines (a 20 minute drive), to get Wyeast strains. 99.9% of liquid yeast i use is White Labs; so i can only assume this batch was packaged either first thing on Monday or after lunch on a Friday  

[Big Nake]

I have had bad, old yeast that smelled and looked "dark". But that was old. I have also had starters that were bad... smelly, foul, wrong, not good. In those cases I assumed that I mishandled things. My kitchen is not lab-grade sanitized. I could breathe on the yeast and have an issue. A breeze could come through the kitchen window and contaminate the yeast. I think that anything could happen where it was the brewer's issue and "out of the question" seems out of bounds. I'm not saying it was you but when it happens to me, I blame me.

[MyaCullen]

I've had 1 or 2 WL tubes give me trouble over the years but no WYEAST fails

[LeftyMPfrmDE]

I've had 1 or 2 WL tubes give me trouble over the years but no WYEAST fails

 

same here; out of the dozen or so Wyeast smack packs i've had, never an issue. 

 

I have had bad, old yeast that smelled and looked "dark". But that was old. I have also had starters that were bad... smelly, foul, wrong, not good. In those cases I assumed that I mishandled things. My kitchen is not lab-grade sanitized. I could breathe on the yeast and have an issue. A breeze could come through the kitchen window and contaminate the yeast. I think that anything could happen where it was the brewer's issue and "out of the question" seems out of bounds. I'm not saying it was you but when it happens to me, I blame me.

I gotcah; but i like to think this was a fluke- out of all the starters I've made, never had one go south like this; better to ruin a starter then ruin a batch of beer!

[Big Nake]

same here; out of the dozen or so Wyeast smack packs i've had, never an issue. 
 
I gotcah; but i like to think this was a fluke- out of all the starters I've made, never had one go south like this; better to ruin a starter then ruin a batch of beer!

Agreed. I dislike the idea of putting effort into making a starter for things to go down. I guess I would envision that there might be a large, homebrewers-world-wide outcry if a lab put out a bad batch of yeast. I suppose that it's possible for it to happen but I just assume that it's much more likely to be ME and not them. Plus... imagine contacting them and saying, I got bad yeast from you!... they would be laughing saying, "Oh yeah! It was US!".