1 or 2 stage starter for saturday's brew day?

Hey guys,

I know, I know, I should have thought ahead and already got started on a 2 stage starter but I procrastinate, so here we are Wednesday evening...

I'm planning on brewing 10 gallons of a 1.052 OG Scottish Ale Saturday morning and only have one vial of Edinburgh White Labs yeast.

Do I still have enough time to step up a ~1L starter to ~3L?

Do I even need to step it up or can I just start out with a ~2-3L starter with one vial when only doing a 1.052 OG beer?

According to Brewer's Friend, 3L will get you 511bl cell w/ a pitch rate of .95M / mL /ºP, assuming an 80% viability (28 days old)

http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

So are you saying a 3L starter without stepping it up will be fine?

That's what the calculator says. If I were doing it, I'd probably do the 3L in one stage in order to leave me time to crash the starter. Note that the production date I entered is 01/01/14. .95M/mL/ºP is a slight over pitch-but not enough to worry about. Check out that link, it's a very handy tool, especially now that YeastCalc is apparently history.

Oh, and that's also assuming the use of a stir plate...

Lol great... and I just lost my stir bar too... Any suggestions on makeshift stir bar?

Sent from my XT1060 using Home Brew mobile app

Not really, but on my last starter I somehow lost one of mine in the garbage disposal & ended up grinding the coating off.

Well I hope a 2l starter at 1.042 SG is enough to split into two 5 gallon batches... I've never had this m much krausen in a starter with so little headroom! It's only been 8 hours. The foam is actually running down three side of the flask! Woohoo! I think...