I can only speak for myself, but when I use a new strain for the first time, obviously having no prior experience with it, I use a calculator which gets me in the ballpark of what I need to pitch. And it does. But now having used it once, the calculator doesn’t override my experience the second time I use it. I consult my notes as to prior starter quantity and method, lag time, attenuation, etc., as well as final impressions on the beer/yeast character. I’m sure several others here do something similar. A calculator is just a tool in the toolbox. I don’t throw away my ball peen hammer because the claw hammer was the better tool for a given job.
What resources are there for a rookie brewer with no experience with a given strain. Are you saying such a brewer should plod through several trials with such strain hoping for success but tracking all results? How long will it take me blindly trying before I can hit the sweet spot without an idea of where to start? I’m new enough that I’m willing to change, but I’m just looking to be on the right playing field. If all data from"these online calculators" is worthless, where do I start? I, like others I’m sure, cannot afford ingredients to experiment with over and over, and would rather have something give me an idea where I should be. I’m not the smartest brewer by a long shot but I do have a desire to learn.
That’s 95% of the fight, Frank. Do what I do on that last post, or for that matter use a calculator every time, entering your info carefully, and you WILL make good beer consistently.
Thanks Jon, think I just type slow. I was starting my post and while typing it, you and Jonathan pretty much got in there and said exactly what I was trying to say, only better. You’re method is what I have been trying to do, and it has been working well, but I have not been remaking very many batches yet to compare. I really need to settle down and get one recipe down as well as my processes. Now is the time to get to it, as I now have a new, bigger kettle as well as a new, bigger, stainless fermenter. Time to learn my new system
amen +100
or in the words from Rev. Bubba Flavel of Porky’s - “so sayeth the shepherd, so sayeth the flock”
What I provided was little more than simple growth rates. I kept the calculation simple to demonstrate that yeast grow exponentially, not linearly. If I attempted to do what the yeast calculators attempt to do, I would have given you a way to determine the exact time that a culture was ready to pitch. The times that I quoted leave a lot of room for variability. If you track cell growth in a lab, I can guarantee that you will find starters that are ready to pitch in as little as 4 hours.
That’s not been my case. I have been a computer scientist and engineer for thirty-five years (the first machine on which I worked was a MIL-SPEC computer that had discrete logic and ferrite-core memory). I have seen a lot of people come and go during my career. Most did not go of their own free will.
What is your batch size and normal gravity ranges? If you are 5-gallon brewer who brews mostly 1.065 or lower ales, a 1L starter made with 1.030 to 1.040 gravity wort will get you into the ballpark. If your brewing 5-gallons of lager in the same gravity range, double the starter size.
A 1L starter is capable of supporting up to 200 billion viable cells (double that amount for 2L). You should be able to approach 400 billion cells in a 2L starter of the gravity listed above if you are using a relatively new White Labs vial. However, the thing remember here is that starters are like atomic bombs in that you do not have to be exact. You just do not want to be off by an order of magnitude. The only way to be off by an order of magnitude when pitching a normal gravity beer is to pitch an old White Labs vial without making a starter, and even then, I guarantee that the sky will not fall. I knew a guy who routinely pitched the old-style Wyeast smack packs of 1056 without making a starter (something that I would never recommend), and his beers turned out fine. The old smack packs were smaller than the current smack packs.
In my humble opinion, high gravity beers are best fermented with slurry cropped from a 1.050 to 1.060 beer (see my post about stepped starters if you insist on growing a starter). Three to four hundred milliliters of thick slurry should attenuate 5-gallon batches up to 1.100 if you aerate the wort well. You are on your own above that gravity range.
Ok so here’s a new variation on my question S.: I am brewing a Dunkel Sunday. 6 gallons at 1.054. My WLP833 was harvested 9/15/14 and (I’m sorry for the reference) beersmith roughs it in at almost 70% viability. I have 2L, 5L, and 1G vessels. What is my best path to about 400-450B cells? I made a 1.25L starter of 1.031( measured) tonight and pitched to this with the plan of then crashing, decanting and pitching to 2.75L of 1.04 wort. Am I in good shape, or in the future would you suggest just a larger 1 step starter. This plan came mainly from my understanding of what you had stated earlier in the thread
That’s the correct way to look at it. Software is a tool, not a replacement for knowledge.
I like that plan. I two step my lagers at 1.030 from 1800-2000 volume. It works and I all have is an educated guess based upon experience and yes, a tool [emoji12]
You are fine. The 5L vessal is your best bet, but you need a way to seal it while shaking.
You could have pitched the White Labs vial into 2L of 1.040 wort and been with it.
Let me know how the fermentation turns out. If you have the time to monitor the fermentation closely, take good notes. Any change in the fermentation should be logged. The log entry should include the date, time, fermentation temperature, and any observation. The goal here is to get a better handle on how the yeast culture behaves after being pitched.
Thanks S. I will report back as best as possible. It will be in a chest freezer set at 50, and I won’t be pitching till next morning before work,( having a bit of a warm spell here in low 70’s) I will try to make observations before and after work all week. The second step is going great, just about 2.5L and been shaking regularly. Really cool to hear all the CO2 escaping from under the foil as I shake. Plan is to crash in the morning in same freezer I will be chilling wort in overnight, then decant and pitch Monday morning
My starter wound up in 2 steps: about 1.25L and 2.75L. I pitched Monday morning about 7am. There were a couple random bubbles popping through the airlock by about 6pm and it was going good when I took the dogs out before bed around 11. It is steady chugging along now and I posted(or tried to post) a cell phone video with audio of it sitting in my Vessel in the chest freezer. Link is in beer recipes under “BCS Dunkel” thanks for all the help
She said the pumps had to be turned on (not sure she said when), as the years drops in 3 days if done or not.
The best time for them to top crop was at 1.022. They thought they would have the timing figured out, but sometimes it would be much earlier, which had some stories associated.
After fermentation, she said the beer had to be kept away from O2 to the point that they would purge the tanks and transfer lines. Just a little air would create diacetyl from the leftover precursors.
There was a much that had to be done to make beer with low diacetyl, according to her.