Enough Yeast Cells?

[JBrew]

Hi all,

Have a WYEAST Lager smack pack with a May date which according MRMalty is at 10% viability. Im a bit unsure about his calculator as he's telling me to use several packs and a shite load of starter to get my cell count up to 500 million cells.

I pitched my starter in to a litre of wort this morning..... am hoping to have enough activity to pitch another 4L at some stage tomorrow and then maybe another 4L on Sunday night to have a 9L starter to decant and pitch in to my brew on Tuesday.

Beer will be 28L 1.050 OG Pilsner.

Do I have enough time to successfully step up twice between now and Tuesday? Id want it to ferment out by Tuesday morning so I can refridgerate and decanter/pitch late morning.

Alternative would be to step up once - a fresh pack and 5L starter would probably give me 500m cells. Could I push the first step to 5 or 6 L without the second step?

I could also grab another pack if im too late with the starter....

cheers - j

 

[JBrew]

BTW - unfortunately no stir plate and no shaking until im home later this evening....

 

[GalBrew]

Use the stepped starter function on Yeastcalc.com It will give you a better idea on what you need to do. Mr Malty isn't really helpful on how to build up a stepped starter from old yeast. Or you could just buy a new pack.

 

[JBrew]

Cheers Galbrew - Yeastcalc indicates two 4L step ups will do the job. Hopefully 36 hours for each step will be enough?

 

[GalBrew]

I usually do 18-24 hours for my starters, seems to work ok.

 

[rheffera]

I run with 24 hours between steps myself, unless im working with re-culturing yeast from a bottle, in which case i leave the first step for 36 hours.