I ordered some pitchable yeast (Wyeast American Ale, don’t remember the # off the top of my head) and it arrived on Tuesday. I was at a conference and finally got home last night and put the package into the fridge, but it had sat in my living room (72-78 degrees ish) for two days. The package had swollen but it seems to have deflated slightly since putting it in the fridge last night. Can I still use it? Should I try to turn it into a started? I’m not planning on brewing for another few days.
Yeah, make the starter for sure. If you have the time you might want to make a small one, like 500 ml then step it up to whatever you need for the beer you’re making. Check out Mrmalty.com to calculate the size of the starter you should be using.
Yeah, they (and White Labs for that matter) claim that they’re “pitchable” but, if you use the calculator at the link Tygo provided, you’ll see that you almost always need to make a starter. So, go ahead and make the starter and you should be fine for yeast.