These are the days where us folks from temperately chaotic climates start declaring "Warmer weather has finally arrived!!" to either the rolled eyes or dismissive guffaws of those lucky enough to live where freezing is something that happens in appliances & cryobanks. My appreciation for the seasonal change aside, these months do call attention to one of the few caveats of buying live yeast cultures via the internet: shipping & outside temperature.
Yeast are hearty organisms who have withstood centuries of propagation, pitching, & repetition ad pint infinitum. Their story in creating your beer is probably one you understand well by now. But the little guys need a hospitable environment to reproduce & keep their various cellular bits operating at pure, top-notch quality.
Yeast are hearty organisms who have withstood centuries of propagation, pitching, & repetition ad pint infinitum. Their story in creating your beer is probably one you understand well by now. But the little guys need a hospitable environment to reproduce & keep their various cellular bits operating at pure, top-notch quality.
The weather at NB World HQ is now turning warmer, and surely the weather for some of you is in the pre-boiling phase. It's a good time for my annual fair warning: ship your liquid yeast with an ice pack. The average order from NB will spend 2-3 days in a FedEx trailer, which is not a viable environment for liquid yeast. Add one ice pack per Wyeast Activator or White Labs vial to help those yeast cells stay cooler. Our customer fulfillment staff will package frozen ice packs snuggled right against your yeast in an insulated envelope to help maintain viability.
Dry yeast is definitely a good option for the hottest months, especially if you live in NY or CA, and shipping transit time is 4 business days.
ReplyDeleteDoes a tiny little ice pack really help? It must get over 120 F in the back of those Fed Ex trailers. Not to mention when it gets on the truck for delivery. What kind of % viability do you think there is after being exposed to such warm tempuratures? Should we use bigger starters? Or go to our LHBS? I'd rather buy from ND but don't want to be pitch 75% dead yeast cells. Maybe I need to start re-pitching like the pros. Just for summer ;-) I promise.
ReplyDelete@Andrew - Does one ice pack help? Yes (but more than one pack helps more); how much does it help, or how much cell attrition occurs in spite of it? It depends a lot on the number of days in transit and the local weather (it might be 120F in AZ right now, but I'm pretty sure no FedEx trailers in my neighborhood are that hot at the moment). How big is the order - is it one yeast pack in a small box or is it buried in the middle of a large box with other, somewhat-insulative stuff like grain? Expedited shipping plus ice packs is the best but most expensive; ice packs plus ground shipping is a more economical route; starters are always wise regardless, and as Tom mentioned, dry yeast may be a safer option depending on the heat.
ReplyDeleteWhat if I don't want to brew for several weeks? Please excuse me ignorance but should I just throw it in the fridge without smacking/activating it? (ordered an ingredient kit today to score the free satchel - won't brew for a while yet)
ReplyDelete@Andrew - no excuses!! ; p
ReplyDeleteIf you're not brewing right away, you are correct - refrigerate and store un-smacked. NB recommends that liquid yeast be used w/in 3 months of purchase, but if you keep it in the fridge the whole time there will probably still be live cells in a pack or vial that's a year old (that's assuming pretty non-stressful shipping times/conditions; if it spent 4 days en route to Phoenix in mid July, YMMV). Of course, the older a pack or vial of liquid yeast gets, the more necessary a starter becomes, and if it's outside the retailer's/mfr's recommended use-by date, then the more necessary a stepped-up starter becomes. I usually buy extras of my favorite PC strains to keep around, and when brewing with packs that get long in the tooth, I start them out well in advance of brew day in a very small volume of low-gravity starter wort - like 250 ml at 1.030 or so - with Wyeast nutrient or Servomyces, and gradually build it up in increasingly bigger starters (eg, 250 mL into 1 liter, 1 liter into 3 liters) until I've reached the required starter size/pitch rate. Hope this helps!
I've had such good luck with dry yeast my past few sessions that I may not go back. In fact my Octoberfest 2010 won first place here in Virginia using dry yeast. Lately I have been harvesting the yeast from the fermenter, cleaning, and pitching it back into another batch with wonderful results. I certainly agree that little ice packs dont do much for 4-5 shipments.
ReplyDelete