I’m intrigued to try out a few different liquid yeast strains, but only make 2.5 gallon batches to allow for more frequent brew days. I’d like to avoid any easily avoidable issues that may come from overpitching, and unfortunately internet searches haven’t provided good results thus far.
Does the liquid yeast need to be split up to correspond with the batch volume, or does it not matter?
If you brew fairly frequently and have a strain you consider a house yeast, just build a starter and save what you don’t need in the initial brew for the next batch. After the second beer, harvest some slurry for the next and repeat until you see any difference in performance.
Same here. 3 gallons in the fermenter is my standard batch size and when I use liquid yeast I pitch one full Wyeast or White Labs pack. I’ve never had a problem with fermentation at this pitch rate.
Bingo! Overpitching is serious problem when serially repitching because it leads to insufficient new cell growth, leading to a culture that contains a lot of dead and old cells.