Pitch rate discrepency

Ingredients
1

Hello all,

I am new to brewing (brewing my first batch Saturday). I have bought a quality setup and have done a fair amount of research to minimize mistakes on my first batch. While I still expect some trial and error, I’m trying to work out some bugs prior to brewing. While calculating my yeast pitch rate I used Imperial Yeasts yeast pitch calculator and compared it to Brewfather and found a significant difference.

I am brewing an amber for my first beer with a target OG of 1.052 with a FG of 1.014 and using Imperial yeast’s Juice. Imperial Yeast’s calculator calls for .9 packages of yeast while Brewfather calls for 1.6 packages. Not having prior experience, I don’t understand how much this could affect the beer, but it seems like a 50%+ increase in yeast could make a considerable difference. Yeast pitch is one area that I still need to do some research so I’m sure there may be something misunderstanding or not accounting for. If anyone could shine some light on this I would be very grateful!

2

What is the best before date?

3

Rule of thumb… if your OG is 1.060 or less you can pitch one pouch of Imperial yeast with no worries.

I have no experience with your software but from using Beersmith for several years I know that you need to enter the best-by date from the package when you enter the yeast into your recipe.

4

5 gallon batch?

5

Thanks for the replies everyone -super helpful. I did in fact forget to set the best by date and that cleared up the issue. It now calls for 1 pkg of the yeast!

6

Important information is also the batch size as well as fermentation temperature.  Like Kevin, I also use BeerSmith for all my calculations (except water acidification) and it’s pretty accurate once the Equipment Profile is tuned in to your system.