Doing a Dark Belgian Ale using WLP540 or Wyeast 1762. OG will be like 1.011. So I was gonna start with 1.5l. of 1.030, cold crash, decant and add another 1.5l. of 1.030.
Is this a better method than just doing one 3l. of 1.030?
If you can I would do the single step 3 liter. a given volume of wort will only grow a certain amount of yeast. adding that same amount of yeast to the same amount of wort again won’t result in significant additional growth.
If I recall a 1 liter starter will max out at about 200 billion cells
Slight correction there.
There has been some discussion here as of late suggesting that stepping up the gravity on your starters may help acclimate your yeast to higher gravity wort.
If you went the stepped starter route, I’d make your second step maybe around 1.050 instead of 1.030. You will get some yeast growth, since there is more extract (sugar) present than the previous step, even though it is the same volume. I’d pitch this step at high krausen if at all possible.
good point
You won’t get much out of the 2nd step because the cell density will be pretty high to begin. For the stepped starters in Yeast, each step is several times larger than the last - like 5 or more times larger.
The Brewers’ Friend calculator shows no difference between one 3L and a two-step 1.5L starter. (Actually, the two step calculates fewer cells at the end.)
Or it may not. IME, it’s unnecessary.
Wow! A 1.011 OG! I think you could ferment that with 20 yeast cells… ;D
I agree that it’s not necessary. I’ve had plenty of big beers ferment out perfectly well using a single starter of normal gravity. But I do feel that repitches from a 1.050-1.060ish batch tend to perform a bit better than a single-step starter.
If you’re going to do a starter in two steps of the same volume, using a higher gravity the second time will net you some additional growth. It may not guarantee you a better beer, but I don’t see a reason why not to make the second step a bit higher gravity than the first one.