5L 1.034 Starter on Stir Plate for 16hrs with WLP001

I just made up 5L of 1.034 wort (using 1# DME). I'll be done brewing a 15 gallon batch tomorrow in about 16 hours.

I am going to pitch 1 White Labs vial of WLP001 into the starter.

Can I expect 100 billion cells to turn into 300 billion cells (like the chart in the Yeast book)?

Is 16 hours long enough? (I could wait to pitch, if needed).

I plan to pitch a pack of dry Nottingham in 1 of the 3 buckets and then split the WLP001 Starter into the other 2 buckets. Or do you thing I'll get enough growth to pitch the 5L starter into all 15 gallons. (The planned OG of the beer is 1.052) I have several packets of Nottingham and don't mind doing a side by side comparison with the WLP001.

Should I crash and decant the spent wort? Or can I pitch 2.5L into a 5 gallon batch? I don't think the starter will be done fermenting... maybe it's better just to pitch it at high krausen.

MrMalty.com says I need 364 billion cells for just 10 of the gallons. That supports my plan of pitch 5 gallons with Notty.

Your thoughts?

No replies, eh? Here is what I ended up doing.

Over night the starter had gone from 1.034 to 1.013. I cold crashed it as soon as I woke up. Then once I saw a decent slug of yeast at the bottom I decanted some of the spent wort (from 5L down to 2.75L).

Then when the brew day wort (an APA) was chilled I topped up the 5L flash back to 5L.

I swirled the yeast back into solution and pitched it into two buckets each containing 4 gallons of 1.053 wort.

The rest of my wort got Nottingham as I planned.

Next time I make a starter, I need to start earlier.

Sounds like a cool experiment to see the flavor and fermentation differences between the two yeasts. My typical starter regime is to pitch the entire starter if I'm only going out 12-18 hours on the stir plate. If I let it go out any further, I chill for 2-3 days to get all the yeast to drop out then decant. I fear that decanting too quickly, you may be losing a fair amount of viable yeast that is still in suspension. Hard to tell for sure though. Worst case scenario, you get a few more esters and more growth in the WLP001 buckets with a slightly longer lag time. Should be good yeast to rinse and recover! Post your fermentation and tasting notes, this is what homebrewing is all about

The WLP001 started within a couple hours. The Nottingham dry yeast, rehydrated with GoFirm were going I before I woke up (over 12 hours).

I agree that I surely dumped some yeast crashing the WLP001 so quickly. I put the 5L flask in a bucket with ice water. Worked well for the time frame I was working with.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

With a two hour lag, you are golden.

conclusion-

the WLP001 and Nottingham both fermented from 1.053 to 1.014

primary was 7 days and then cold crashed for 5
kegged and drinking now on day 14

i have no idea which keg is on which tap
so I am drinking them both blind now

there is a difference but it is subtle

this is the fastest beer I have made
very bright, it could be served at a pub now

when I peak to see which yeast is which I will post back
interesting to see if I find the starter and liquid yeast worth the effort

I've been drinking this APA on tap for a few weeks now.
I prefer the WLP001 beer to the Nottingham dry yeast.
They both finished at 1.014 or within a point in the same amount of time.

As far as this procedure for a quick single step starter, it work fine for 10 gallons of 1.053 wort from on vial.