I had some Wyeast 2487-PC Hella Bock yeast that was nearing its “best buy” date.
I have a maibock planned but wont get to it for at least another couple weeks.
I made a starter and its been cold crashing in my fridge for a few days now.
Should I;
leave it in the flask with the foam stopper?
Put some star san foil on the flask instead of the stopper with a rubber band around it?
Boil a mason jar with water, let the water cool, decant the starter, mix with the sterile water & transfer to the mason jar for storage until im ready to do the starter a couple days before brew?
I was leaning towards the last option but thought i might get a couple other opinions.
I’d use the foil. if you decant you have removed the low pH, high alcohol liquid that is serving to help protect the yeast from infection. I’d also plan on making another starter with it before brewing.
Keep in mind that if you simply boil a Mason jar with water, neither is sterilized. You’d need a pressure cooker for that. It might seem pedantic but there was recently a thread here about a spoiled batch that was likely due to a starter contaminated during yeast washing. S. cerivisiae gave a very nice explanation of why using boiled water to store yeast is a dicey proposition and why it’s advantageous to store the yeast under the beer that it made.