can yeast get old?

[mfradman]

Been away for a while, but I decided to make a little run. This is the recipe I followed,
GOOD WHISKEY
I thought you might like this moonshine recipe to enable you to Make Whiskey at home.
The ingredients are malt, sugar, yeast and rain water. You can buy the malt from most big supermarkets, if they don't have it they will probably order it for you. The brand names for the malt and yeast can be Blue Ribbon, and Red Top. The malt is a liquid and comes in a can, the yeast comes in cakes.
To every can of malt you will add 5 gallons of warm water, dissolve 5 pounds of sugar and add 1 cake of yeast. Mix all this together in a barrel made of plastic, stainless steel, or copper, under no circumstances use aluminum.
Keep it covered with cheese cloth to keep the bugs out. Keep it in a warm place till it ferments. Then you can cook it off in your still and you have the smoothest whiskey you have ever tasted.
After you run off the whiskey, it is clear like water. You can color it by taking a piece of dry fruit wood (or maple), burn the fruit wood over a flame till it is blackened, then drop the burned fruitwood in your clear whiskey. In a few days the whiskey will be the color of store bought whiskey.
I heated the malt to 160 and than added sugar 5#.
I am at the end of a pound of Crosby&Baker Super start Distillers Yeast. I added about an ounce, It has been sealed in a jar and keep lovingly in a safe place for some time, I think it may be 8 years old. Can it die? I pitched the yeast this morning when the wash was 65 degrees.
Regards, Mike

[NZChris]

I've come across dead yeast that was younger than that. Tried to make bread with it at a Backpacker hostel. Completely lifeless.

[Truckinbutch]

Yep , yeast can age out if not kept under perfect conditions and nurtured .

[mfradman]

Yeah I added some red hat about 11:am and the wash is already doing it. Yes!
Mike

[Saltbush Bill]

Yes yeast can die, or be damaged to such an extent that it wont work. Kept in an air tight container in the refrigerator it will last for a very long time.
I have some at the moment that was past its "use by date" when I bought it over 3 years ago.
A few days ago I wondered if it was still any good, sprinkled some into a glass full of water with a small amount of sugar in it. It was off and bubbling happily within 20 mins.

[LG11]

in 2004 yeast cells found in the cloth of a pharaohs mummy (I cant remember at all the pharaoh!!) were placed on a agar agar plate and grew! so 3 years is a long way off lol