Friday, October 29, 2010

Yeast Expiration Dates

 If you're like me you want to make sure that your beer is made from the absolute freshest ingredients available to you. This also goes for the yeast used to ferment those ingredients into a highly drinkable beer, it has to be viable in order for it to convert enough of the fermentable sugars. For some reason or reasons unknown to me the manufacturers of yeast seem to go out of their way when it comes to printing expiration dates on the yeast they package.

Wyeast With  MFG 30Apr2010 Stamped On The Package

 I got the lowdown on the Wyeast manufacture date you can read it here on the Wyeast site.  It seems the yeast is guaranteed to be at its best when used within 6 months of the manufacture date printed on the yeast package.

 As for the Fermentis yeast expiration dates it's a little different than you might expect. The packets I have on hand have '07 2010 LTBEA' stamped on each packet, which means the yeast was manufactured in '07 2008', so for Fermentis the date is the expiration date. Fermentis claims their yeast is viable for 2 years from the date of manufacture, as long as the yeast is stored properly.

2 Packages Of Fermentis Yeast Have Already Expired


 Danstar dry yeast comes with a 2 year expiration date guaranteed shelflife if stored properly, either refrigerated or stored at room temperature, although they recommend refrigerating whenever possible to assure even better results.


Danstar Dry Yeast Guaranteed Viable For 2 Years

2 comments:

  1. Have some Nottingham ale yeast that says best if used by 2017 is it still good?

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  2. Let me put it this way I believe that the fresher the yeast, the better. I would buy fresher yeast to ferment my beer and use the 2017 yeast as a yeast nutrient added to the boil.

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