Mr Malty Has Shares In Yeast?

[bcp]

I must be doing something wrong and i just can't for the life of me see it.


I have 23 litres with an OG of 1.072, and mr malty wants me to create an 11.5 litre starter? That's a pretty sizable batch of beer for a starter isn't it? I have a stir plate which would bring it down to 4.5 litres, but I'd like a reality check on these calculations. It's sunday morning and maybe i'm doing something stupid.

 

[Pennywise]

I don't use this calculator because this same thing happens to me way too often with it, dunno, I might be using it wrong

 

[Sunshine_Brewer]

The freshness of the yeast is most important, the viability in this particular instance is quite low which affects the result. Try to get a fresher yeast sample/smack pack and see what difference that makes.

 

[melbrine]

Just put your figures in and get 4.3 litres. Much more like it. I have Mr Malty hiccup from time to time too. You can't go wrong with 4 L. Happy Brewing!

 

[bcp]

Just put your figures in and get 4.3 litres. Much more like it. I have Mr Malty hiccup from time to time too. You can't go wrong with 4 L. Happy Brewing!

Kind of what i was thinking.
I'd be interested to know what sized starter people normally use for big beers. If i put my 'april 10' (yes, slightly old) pack of yeast into a 4 litre starter, surely i'd have sufficient to do most big beers?

 

[Fourstar]

Its all about the viability of the yeast dated there. if you set the viability of something thats brand spanking new or 'repitched' you will notice its signifigantly lower.

My suggestion is to ALWAYS brew a smaller beer and re-use slurry or top-crop onto your bigger beer. the results will always be far more superior and you will be closer to the correct repitch size and lower growth of the colony.

The biggest problem with big beers is the growth size of the colony. The smaller you pitch, the worse off ester wise your beer will be, This is regardless if you ferment at the lower end of the temperature range. Attenuation may also suffer too.

 

[bcp]

Its all about the viability of the yeast dated there. if you set the viability of something thats brand spanking new or 'repitched' you will notice its signifigantly lower.

My suggestion is to ALWAYS brew a smaller beer and re-use slurry or top-crop onto your bigger beer. the results will always be far more superior and you will be closer to the correct repitch size and lower growth of the colony.

The biggest problem with big beers is the growth size of the colony. The smaller you pitch, the worse off ester wise your beer will be, This is regardless if you ferment at the lower end of the temperature range. Attenuation may also suffer too.

This is a belgian strong golden ale, which in turn want I want to use the slurry as a starter for my delirium tremens attempt. So are you saying it probably wouldn't hurt to do, say, half a tin of no brand extract & 11 litres to create a bigger starter and use the slurry?
i. Isn't there a risk i'll overpitch?
ii.For something like a big belgian, is it worth keeping some starter aside for later in the fermentation in case it stalls as i'm adding invert sugar day by day?

 

[Fourstar]

This is a belgian strong golden ale, which in turn want I want to use the slurry as a starter for my delirium tremens attempt. So are you saying it probably wouldn't hurt to do, say, half a tin of no brand extract & 11 litres to create a bigger starter and use the slurry?
i. Isn't there a risk i'll overpitch?
ii.For something like a big belgian, is it worth keeping some starter aside for later in the fermentation in case it stalls as i'm adding invert sugar day by day?

Yeah, do anything in the ballpark of 1.050. a belgian pale ale or a low gravity blonde is fine, even if you want todo a moderatly high abv... e.g.7% do a half batch and then use that slurry for the big full volume beer (i'd prefer a lower gravity to ensure you do not stress the yeast.). Overpitching is typically an issue when using 're-pitched yeast' by adding dead yeast cells etc, spoiling the beer. in your case, overpitching is the least of your concerns.

 

[melbrine]

Wyeast Labs website has a pitch rate calculator you can play with to build up your starter - just remember they work in gallons, but it works fine.

 

[mje1980]

Yeah, do anything in the ballpark of 1.050. a belgian pale ale or a low gravity blonde is fine, even if you want todo a moderatly high abv... e.g.7% do a half batch and then use that slurry for the big full volume beer (i'd prefer a lower gravity to ensure you do not stress the yeast.). Overpitching is typically an issue when using 're-pitched yeast' by adding dead yeast cells etc, spoiling the beer. in your case, overpitching is the least of your concerns.

I have my 1st tripel in the fermentor now, and this is exactly what i did. Made a starter, then pitched into a 4.6% belgian pale ale ( basically a koelsh style grist ), then dumped my tripel on the cake ( took 2 small PET's of slurry first ). It it going great, even though the temp has been around 16-18c. I just added my 800g sugaz to it and it bought the temp up to 22c. Stoked!, so excited, and it smells awesome.

 

[katzke]

Have done two 1.070 beers and just pitched a pack of US-05 and all went well. Wyeast is a different story and even the fresh packs I get 100 miles away are too small for normal beers. One of the reasons I changed to dry yeast. Have not had any yeast related issues after the switch.

4 liters will not hurt but if it is all slurry, it sounds like a lot of yeast. People pitch on that much yeast when they pitch on a yeast cake and say they have no problems.

Dont you want funky yeast taste from a Belgian strain? I do not like them so have no idea as I will never brew with one.

 

[Wolfy]

I must be doing something wrong and i just can't for the life of me see it.

MrMalty works on the 'industry standard pitching rate', and as outlined in 'Designing Great Beers' the 'home brew pitching rate' (acceptable rate to pitch for home brewing situations) can be up to 10 times less than that. The book even mentions that an 11L starter is a little unreasonable for a home brewer to make.

As others have suggested the MrMalty calculator depends heavily on the viability of the yeast, which it determines according to the age of the pack. However it also assumes that you will pitch the number of packs directly into your starter. When the calculator suggests a larger starter, I always build the starter in steps, a 1L - 2L starter from the pack and then a 4L or 5L starter made from that. This way when you make the final step of the starter process, you know the health and viability of your yeast is optimal (they are only about 1 day old!) and this can often greatly reduce the total volume required. So in this situation I set the yeast yeast-age to today's date and make the starter in at least two steps.

However, again as others have suggested, for larger volumes or higher gravity beers, sometimes the only/best way to get the high yeast cell counts you require is to brew either a lower gravity or smaller volume batch of beer first. Rather than making a 10L starter for my next batch of beer, I simply made a half batch (11L) of beer, pitched the usual 2L starter into that and will reuse the yeast slurry from the first batch.

 

[felten]

Selecting simple starter on the drop down changes everything (a LOT less growth), if you have a stir plate, just select stir plate and that seems more reasonable.

 

[Barry]

I use a 20 litre starter of 60/- for my Wee Heavy.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Actually, if you read that screenshot properly you will notice that Mr malty wants you to not only build an 11.5L starter, he wants you to start with 2 packs of the yeast you have plugged in too.

You have an older, and therefore by the assumptions that the Mr Malty calculator is based on, relatively unviable pack of yeast and you are making a big beer. I would suggest that a 4L starter is about appropriate.

Going to the wyeast calculator might do you some good to get someone to reassure you that you need less yeast - But seeing as it was written by the same guy.... Probably not a lot.

Do a two step starter and you will be fine.

If you take your yeast pack and make a 1L stir plate starter with it... Mr Malty says you will end up with 111 billion cells, and if you then let that settle, decant off the liquid and add 1.6L of fresh wort for a second step, you will end up with the 301 billion cells you need.

More reasonable??

Your problem here is starting with an older yeast pack. I think Mr malty's pitching rates are right on teh mark.... I think he is overly pessimistic about how quickly yeast packs deteriorate.

TB

 

[felten]

Your problem here is starting with an older yeast pack. I think Mr malty's pitching rates are right on teh mark.... I think he is overly pessimistic about how quickly yeast packs deteriorate.

I was listening to an episode today where he says that the companies wouldn't give out the deterioration rate so he had to figure it out from his own analysis, so you probably do want to take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Jamil's experimental technique usually sounds pretty good to me and he certainly consulted with guys who know what they are talking about when he was setting up the pitching rate calculator. But....

I seem to recall him talking about doing his viability tests via cell counting on a haemocytometer with M'blue staining - and while this is pretty standard practise for checking yeast viability, it is also notoriously inaccurate for viability levels lower than about 85%. Now there are ways that a home brewer could measure viability that were more accurate, but they would be really seriously labour intensive - so while I don't know that its true, my assumption is that the viability levels on that calculator are fairly accurate at the higher end of the range, deteriorating at the lower end, where I can only imagine that the figures are largely implied from trends set at higher levels and maybe a limited amount of colony counting to get a data point or two at lower levels.

So as you said, I take the lower levels that the calculate from date feature spits out with a large grain of salt. I sort of figure it from how fast the pack swells. Something along the lines of (very roughly)

Swells fully on the same day - 90% viable
Swells fully overnight - 80% viable
Swells fully in 24 hrs - 75% viable
Swells fully in 48 hrs - 50% viable
And after that I pretty much treat them like they are virtually knackered and more or less give them all 25% unless they fail to fully swell at all, then I take a swab out of them and streak a slant and go from there. Most likely already having pitched an alternate yeast into whatever I was intending to use the dodgey pack for.

 

[RetsamHsam]

ii.For something like a big belgian, is it worth keeping some starter aside for later in the fermentation in case it stalls as i'm adding invert sugar day by day?

So will you be adding simple sugars to this beer after the primary ferment is done? If this is the case the OG you should be using for this calculation will be lower than 1.070

 

[bcp]

So will you be adding simple sugars to this beer after the primary ferment is done? If this is the case the OG you should be using for this calculation will be lower than 1.070

Seriously? You mean you calculate your yeast pitch minus the sugars (which is about 1053)? That simplifies life.

Yet peple say you need a big load of yeast for begians like this.