The day you realize you've been underpitching yeast...

So, I am playing around with beersmith, and I happened over to the starter tab. My jaw dropped.

I started plugging in all of my self-developed recipes and I noticed a trend: I have underpitched on nearly every single batch of beer I have ever brewed. Even kits from the homebrew store. To be honest, I was sort of shocked - I had no idea.

This finding alone is probably going to be a reason for me to buy that software - wow.

I think I need to look into a stir plate and flask

Worthy investment IMO! Same thing happened to me.

I like beersmith and recommend it, but as an fyi, there's also yeastcalc.com and mrmalty.com for pitching calculators.

Ain't that the truth

I remember finding out about pitching rates and implementing practices to ensure proper pitching rates. My beer quality definitely went up a bunch of percentage points. Same thing happened when I implemented stricter temperature control (another bunch of percentage points)

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