Im going to make a 5 gallon batch of Pumpkin ale and was going to use 4 Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast. The Original Gravity will be 1.079 and the final gravity will be 1.012. The ABV I am shooting for is 8.8%. Is this to much yeast to add? What are you thoughts and comments? And any other tips for a pumpkin ale would be great too.
Why not just make a yeast starter? To see how much yeast to add you can check a yeast pitching calc like www.mrmalty.com - it will tell you how big of a starter you need or how many packs to add.
Personally, my opinion is if you don’t want to mess with starters dry yeast is a great alternative and us-05 is going to be extremely close to 1056 and a lot easier to handle not to mention a good bit cheaper.
I agree with Keith. Four packs of liquid yeast adds up to close the cost of the grain bill.
A 1 liter starter takes about 15 minutes and cost very little in materials. For a 1.80(ish) beer you shouldn’t really need more than a 1 liter starter with 1056. This is my basic SOP for most of my beers. If the OG is above 1.080 I’ll make a 2 liter starter. It still only takes about 20 minutes.
Paul
I am fairly new to brewing and I am not sure how to do a yeast starter…
I would recommend using a pack or two of dry yeast if you are newer to the hobby. Yeast starters are easy to make.
Don O makes it simple, but there are plenty more videos and tutorials on how to do it. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytJ3VetjgZo
Basically, you boil a bit of dry malt extract with some water, cool it, pitch the yeast into it, and let it ferment to increase the amount if yeast you have. The mrmalty.com site that Keith linked has all the info you need.
I started out with liquid yeasts when I first got into brewing. Then I switched for a long time to dry yeast - they are just easier to deal with. For any beginner I would totally recommend the dry yeast route. It’s less of a pain.