homebrewandbeer.com

I have recently tried a number of strong Belgian ales (Duvel, Hoegaarden Grand cru, Chimay blue, etc) and rather than sending myself broke buying them, I figured I'd have to make one of my own. So I've come up with this:

Brewcraft Belgian Ale
1.5 kg LDME
200 g crystal grain
500 g candi sugar
15 g Styrian goldings - boiled 10 mins.
Whitelabs yeast - WLP 500

Made to 18 litres.

Question regarding the yeast: am i better off just pitching the lot into the wort and then 'harvesting' some of the dregs once fermentation is complete, or splitting the contents of the vial into, say 3 and make seperate starters? How long will the yeast dregs or starters keep in the fridge? I should say that the WLP 500 has a best before date of early Feb....

Oh and any comments, good bad or otherwise on the actual recipe would be appreciated too.

Banger,

Not sure about the White Labs vials, but I know with the Wyeast ones you can split them into 6 or even 12 starters. The suggested method is to make a 1L starter using the whole pack, then once fermented out, split the results into 6 stubbies. The use-by date is a bit of a guide - I bought my first smack packs about a year ago and am still using the proceeds. I think they just take longer to wake up...

HTH,

Tim

Banger,
Further to timmy's advice, I've used yeast that's been in the bottle for 12+ months but to do that you must have your hygiene protcols spot on to avoid mutating the yeast - sure it'll eventually ferment but you may not get the desired results. The other thing to note is that yeast that's been washed and harvested from the slurry tends to last longer than just storing containers of diluted slurry from the fermenter.

Cheers,
TL