To pitch or not to pitch?

[sleepyjamie]

I just finished making an amber ale today and i have a previous 1056 slurry from a black ipa i made a while back. The slurry i collected into 4 mason jars but they've been in the fridge for about 3 weeks now.

i had planned on making the amber a few weeks ago but work + sick held me back.

If i dont pitch the 1056 i have another slurry from an APA that is S-05 that's only been in the fridge for a few days.

question is. should it be ok to pitch this?

heres some pics of the slurry


1056 3rd gen slurry by sleepyjamie, on Flickr


here's a pic of the BIAB amber ale


Amber ale by sleepyjamie, on Flickr

[mr x]

Those yeasts look pretty alive, did they float to the top when they got warm? If it wasn't a high gravity beer I'd pitch 3 week old yeast, but not much after that.

[BBrianBoogie]

Definitely pitch it. Viability will be fine. Use http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html#%22 to see how much you need.

[sleepyjamie]

Definitely pitch it. Viability will be fine. Use http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html#%22 to see how much you need.

thanks.

how do i know what percentage of the jar is yeast? is there an easy way to determine this?

[BBrianBoogie]

Usually a small amount of liquid should rise to the top of the jar after it's been in the fridge. You can just pour that off and the rest is usable. There's a little slider bar on that site that goes between thick and thin slurry in the "repitching from slurry" section. Just bring to where you think your yeast fits in that range. It'll rarely be at extreme ends of that scale so an estimate is fine.

[KMcK]

In any other context 'pitch it' would mean throw it out.

[Keggermeister]

Pitch it already! That's usually the amount of time between my repitches.