Quote:
Originally Posted by shlitzcan
I have a couple dozen successful brews under my belt now. But I would like to step out of my comfort zone and brew a 3 gallon batch of imperial breakfast stout. I would like my abv to be 12-12.5%. My question is do I use 2 viles with a 1000 MIL starter? I was told to use a vile with a big starter and a pack of blue saf, but i've also been told not to mix strands of yeast. So whats the right thing to do?
thanks gentlemen.  |
If you want to do it by the best available information (afaik), go to
www.yeastcalc.com and use their calculator! (MrMalty also has one)
For a 12.5% ABV, you're looking at a starting gravity of around 1.11. For 3 gal with ale yeast, yeastcalc says you need 441 billion cells. Assuming you have a liquid strain you want to use, here's what it looks like:
For a single vial with 75% viability (so about a month after packaging, or 3 months before the expiration date if it's a White Labs vial--not sure about others), you'd need a 6 quart starter with a stir plate. With two vials, you would need a 3 quart starter. So even if you pitch two vials, 1L is not going to be nearly big enough.
If you're limited to 1L starters, you're going to have a challenge---I'm not sure it'll be practical to hit that kind of yeast count with starters that small, you'll need quite a few vials and at that point, 1L stops being enough to increase the cell count significantly. Plus, beyond about 3 vials, it starts being cheaper to invest the money in larger flasks rather than vials of yeast!
What I'd probably do is a two-step starter in a 1 gallon cider jug I use in place of a flask (< $10 full of cider). Using intermittent shaking, a 2qt step followed by a 3qt step hits the numbers. I'd probably do two 3qt steps as insurance.
If you're willing to use dry yeast, everything will be easier. Just use 3 5-gram packs or 1 11.5-gram pack and you should be ok, per MrMalty.
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