in an online article I retrieved back in February of 1998 written by Dave Whitman he discussed storing yeast cultures in distilled water for months even years.
It was from a 1-day seminar he attended at the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in the Washington D.C area.
I was wondering if anyone knew how valid he was concerning this issue. I have been culturing yeast for many years now and any method to further the storage life of my cultures without damaging their integrity would be appreciated. I already store my cultures on slants which have an average life of 6 months. So every 6 months I am forced to reculture to new slants.
Also, if I prepare a slant from a White Labs High Gravity yeast tube that expired 1 year ago is their any possibility that the yeast may still be living?