2 year old yeast

[mr x]

So I broke out an old bottle of 2 year old yeast I had saved from a big starter. It was wYeast 1469, one of their VSS strains:

Wyeast 1469 PC West Yorkshire Ale

This strain produces ales with a full chewy malt flavor and character, but finishes dry, producing famously balanced beers. Expect moderate nutty and stone-fruit esters. Best used for the production of cask-conditioned bitters, ESB and mild ales. Reliably flocculent, producing bright beer without filtration.

Attenuation 67-71%
Alc. Tolerance 9%
Flocculation high
Temperature Range 64-72°F (18-22°C)

Supposedly form Timothy Taylor. It survived. I was fairly impressed. I gave it a cleaning with chlorine dioxide for the first 500 ml step up starter. Then I went with a 4l starter for an SOB. 10 gallons were chugging away nicely when I left home on Saturday morning. Hopefully, it will be a tasty beer.

[John G]

Holy, that's gutsy. A lot of mutation can happen in 2 years. How did you have it stored?

Sounds like a great yeast.

[mr x]

I stored it in a small mason jar in the bottom of the fridge. I'll find out if it's still great in a couple days when I have a little sample.

It's funny, wYeast just re-released this again for the fall. It may have been just as easy to buy another one, but at least I'll probably learn something.