I must have smacked my yeast "smack-pack" a little to hard, tearing a small hole in the seam of the pouch and causing some yeast to leak out. I'm assuming that it's now at risk for infection, but is there any way to save it? I've never used these before and planned on brewing Sunday, but right now I'm having doubts.
Immediately wrap the pack in sanitized tinfoil or plastic to protect it. Then, I would immediately transfer it to a sanitized flask or container, then get your starter going and transfer it to the starter wort ASAP. If you take care of the problem immediately I don't see why you'd have to toss it.
I don't think you are supposed to smack it two days prior to pitching. Hopefully you have kept the situation sanitary. As others have suggested, you might just want to pich it into a starter. Keep it safe from infection until you can prepare one. BTW - when you make staters from the smack packs, it isn't necessary to break the inner pouch. I say this in case you have fear of doing this again.
I agree. I don't bother breaking the inner pouch any more. And recently, I have started to save them. When I have a bunch, I'm going to determine their volumes and gravity, and get to an estimate of just how much sugar is in these things.
I'm using a mini-mash kit from NB, it says on the instruction sheet to smack it "a few days" before brew day because sometimes it can take a few days for the pouch to inflate. I'm pretty new to this, and it's only my first time using liquid yeast, so I don't really know what to expect. I figure I will stick to the instructions for now.
Sure, I don't blame you. Definately follow instructions. However, it should only take a few hours to inflate. It would be a bad sign if it took days. I probably wouldn't use the yeast if it took days to inflate.
This happened to me once. I lost half a pack of Roeselare blend to the kitchen floor because there was an airhole in the pack when I smacked it. I was adding this to secondary, so I just added the remaining contents. It ended up making a nice Flander's sour brown ale, over the course of the next 12 months or so! Although my beer was a bug beer, I don't think there was an infection issue. However, if you have a backup yeast to pitch, it might help to make sure enough yeast are present to finish the job. Before I knew my beer was going to turn out so nicely, I wrote to Wyeast about the faulty smackpack and they arranged for the retailer, Northern Brewer, to give me another. However, back then (4 years ago?) Roeselare was a specialty strain and was no longer available, so NB offered to give me a free Wyeast pack (any variety) in my next order. I ended up brewing my first lager, and Oktoberfest, with the rplacement pack. I really liked the way both manufacturer and retailer were willing to work with me to give me satisfaction FWIW, I also polled the forum internet forums about faulty smack packs and only one other person resported a similar problem, so it is pretty rare.
