I have quite a few yeast samples in my garage fridge (conan, ommegang etc), just realized with the cold snap many likely froze. Are these toast? or should i toss one in a starter and see what happens?
As long as you’re making starters with them, you’ll probably be fine. Freezing might have killed some but not all so the starter route is the way to go.
you might even want to step up a couple times if you think they actually froze. start small, like 100ml and pitch the result into 1000ml and then that into 2000 and that into a 5 gallon batch. or go from 1000ml to a 5 gallon batch of small beer.