I plan to repitch some 2206 that I saved from a Becks clone on 3/27 in to my Helles this weekend. Mr. Malty says the viability is 60% so I’m wondering how big of a starter I should make. I don’t need my usual 1G monster but what is the recommendation of the forum? I was thinking maybe a 2L at 1.038-1.040?
You need to calculate the total number of cells needed which corresponds to a volume of slurry at a given thickness and viability. There is a bit of estimation involved but mrmalty.com will help guide you on this.
This might be a dumb question, but can you overpitch lagers? It seems like most people have issues underpitching lagers, but I haven’t heard of problems from overpitching.
OK, so here is what I have. I saved all the slurry from the Becks in a container. From there I washed it several times until there was a clear separation of water, yeast and trub. Now I just decanted the water, yeast and a little trub in a separate container. The plan was to see how much yeast I have and make a starter from there. If I saved all of it from my last batch and it’s at 60% viability, I figure I’m either right where I need to be or should make a small starter.
Should I now just estimate how much yeast I have, figuring the yeast concentration is on the high side and the non-yeast percentage is on the low side? Seems right but please chime in if I’m missing something. I want to learn how to calculate this properly. Thanks.
I recommend using a moderate slurry thickness and non-yeast percentage of 25%.
For a 50GU Helles use 350Billion cells or 300mL of a moderate slurry. That will be plenty.