So my Belgian abbey ii is not swelling after at least 12 hrs. Should I just abandon hope and go get a new one, pitch anyway, or try and save it in a new container like a half assed starter.
Your smack-pack is not fresh so it may take some time to swell. I would just let it go and when it is puffed up pitch it into a starter. Cheers! P.S. Below is from the Wyeast FAQ: 5. How long should it take for a package to swell? If a package is within 2 months of the manufacture date, the package should show signs of swelling within 5 hours and typically much faster than that. When the yeast is stored for long periods of time, they slowly consume their energy reserves (glycogen). When the energy reserves get low, the yeast are slow to produce CO2 and therefore are slow to cause swelling in the package. Improper storage at warm temperatures also has the same effect as long storage times.
If it was my beer, I would plan on using the smack pack to make a step starter. Probably this pack doesn't have many healthy cells for one reason or another--it happens, especially when they get shipped. But there's bound to be at least some healthy cells in there, and you could build the count up via a step starter to whatever you need. If that's not an option, then I would probably buy another smack pack if I could. You don't want to take chances with the yeast.
Well I don't have a flask or stir plate but I can sanitize the hell out of a bottle and boil up sugar and yeast nutriant and try to make a decent starter.
Don't use sugar. Use DME. Edit: wanted to get the message posted quickly. Here's the rest... if you make a starter out of simple sugars (only), the yeast will build transport mechanisms for those sugars, but not for the more complex sugars found in beer wort. Your starter wort should contain all the sugar types that the yeast will encounter in your beer wort. Read up on starters here... www.mrmalty.com
Don't have any and if I'm driving all the way to my homebrew store I'm just getting another smack pack
That's fine. But keep in mind that depending on the gravity of your wort and age of the yeast, you probably should make a starter anyway. Actually, worts of all but the lowest gravities benefit from a starter, even with fresh yeast packs. The Mr. Malty site has a starter calculator. There are others out there too.
If you do go the HBS, grab a pack of DME while you're there. It's best to use it to make starters, and I've had to add some to a brew or two to hit numbers. I've never not been glad to have a pound kicking around. Seals up fine and lasts plenty long enough to use.
Yea it was when I got home from work it had finally swollen after 36hrs, the instructions said 3hrs and after 12 had passed I was getting nervous.
At the risk of derailing this thread, I thought I might chime in here. I've been searching for an exact source, but I've read that this is not exactly true. I'll paraphrase here: yeast do not "forget" how to metabolize complex sugars if you just use simple table sugar for starters and such. They simply process simpler sugars first. I would agree that DME does have more of the nutrients that yeast use for growth and fermentation so DME is still a good idea. However I have used regular sugar and yeast nutrient when I was out of DME, and didn't experience a poor fermentation on my main batch. Anyway, it's another viewpoint so take it or leave it. I'm quite sure it came from the blog below, which is a fascinating read, even if I can't find my source. http://bkyeast.wordpress.com/ Cheers
I didn't say they would forget how to metabolize complex sugars. I said they would not build transport mechanisms for them. So when you dump these simple-sugar adapted yeast into a challenging (and stressful) environment (beer wort), they are not ready to bring in complex sugars and have to spend time and energy to adapt.
I would highly recommend making a starter. I can guarantee your beer will be noticeably better. And it's not like you need a bunch of equipment: just get some DME, and one of those gallon-size bottles of soda at the supermarket. Pour the soda out (that stuff 'll kill ya), sanitize the bottle, and use that to hold your starter. Boil up the appropriate amount of DME (using instructions at mr malty), cool it down, put it in the bottle, pitch the yeast, and shake the hell out of it every so often. 24-36 hours later, you'll have a good crop of healthy yeast.
