Mark, I’ve often wanted to get your take on lag time.
I understand viability is absolutely important but I’ve heard some homebrewers swing the pendulum so far as to say that cell count is nearly irrelevant and viability of even a small colony is ALL that matters as long as it’s viable.
I realize you could theoretically add one viable yeast cell in a wort and eventually it would create enough biomass to ferment to beer. Of course, this would take forever as the mother of all lag times.
The question(s):
Pitch rate calculators prescribe a certain pitch rate based on mfr recommendations. Are these calculators irrelevant based on SnS viability starters? …or does the ‘solution to pollution is dilution’ mantra apply?
What do you consider a reasonable lag time?