How much washed yeast for a starter?

I washed my yeast from my first beer I made and filled up an old liquid vial full of yeast. I'm just wondering how much of this I should use to make a starter?

I would think it should be plenty, what variety of yeast is it?

Well you need to use all of that and step it up to whatever size starter your batch calls for.

Well its from s-05 dry yeast and I do 5 gallon batches. Just seems like a lot compared to when I have used a liquid yeast for a starter. I know some of the yeast is dead yeast. I just don't want to over pitch

Depending on the gravity of your beer your starter changes in size. You can use that single vial but the yeast may become strained. The best way is to step up your yeast on a stir plate to say 1.5 or 2L.

I dont think your understanding what im asking. If a normal store purchased vial of yeast is made for a starter....... whats a packed full vial of yeast good for? See this is a normal vial of yeast.

See the white stuff?


My vial is 100% White stuff. Thats like 85% more white stuff haha


and I make around 6% ABV beers

yeah, I've seen the "pitch 1L" suggestions a few times and it confuses me. When using Mrmalty, it suggests somewhere around 100mL for 5 gallons. Why pitch 10 times that? Is slurry not as dependable, so you pitch more of it?

edit: I was using the "repitching from slurry" tab. Does that mean you're trying to restart a stuck fermentation? Maybe I don't understand the calculator

I do understand... you have to step it up like any other starter

Grumpybumpy said:

yeah, I've seen the "pitch 1L" suggestions a few times and it confuses me. When using Mrmalty, it suggests somewhere around 100mL for 5 gallons. Why pitch 10 times that? Is slurry not as dependable, so you pitch more of it?

edit: I was using the "repitching from slurry" tab. Does that mean you're trying to restart a stuck fermentation? Maybe I don't understand the calculator

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That means that you are repitching part of a yeast cake from a previous batch (typically without washing it). The 100 mL refers to 100 mL of pure yeast from the bottom of the fermenter.

People refer to pitching 1 L as a stepped up starter building yeast numbers from a small sample. It refers to the original 1 L of 1.03-1.040 wort in the starter, not the size of the yeast slurry.

I get the question, but to be safe, if make a starter, to wake em up, get em going again, they could be exhausted. They may need to replenish reserves and what not. The starter its the safe way. I know if you pitched the vial you'd be safe. Over pitching is pretty hard to do.

I actually just washed my furst batch of yeast and had the same question. I've thought about it and thats what if do. More white stuff or not....

soo use the entire thing in my 1L starter?

Germelli1 said:

That means that you are repitching part of a yeast cake from a previous batch (typically without washing it). The 100 mL refers to 100 mL of pure yeast from the bottom of the fermenter.

People refer to pitching 1 L as a stepped up starter building yeast numbers from a small sample. It refers to the original 1 L of 1.03-1.040 wort in the starter, not the size of the yeast slurry.

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That is what I figured it was. I have a growler 1/4 full with slurry from a local brewery. Some say to pitch the whole thing, the brewery said do a cup's worth. That's quite a difference. A cup's worth seems to be close to a wyeast packet, which has been working fine for me so far.

Grumpybumpy said:

That is what I figured it was. I have a growler 1/4 full with slurry from a local brewery. Some say to pitch the whole thing, the brewery said do a cup's worth. That's quite a difference. A cup's worth seems to be close to a wyeast packet, which has been working fine for me so far.

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Ah makes sense! In your case you would want to use the rough tools that calculate the amount of cells in a volume of slurry.

Or I would just pitch a cups worth

twelvelookslikex said:

soo use the entire thing in my 1L starter?

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I would personally only use half of it in the starter and save the rest. No reason to use your whole stock when you are building up the cell counts anyway!

Based on some hemocytometer counts I have recently made, I would guess harvested S-05 is around 1.5 billions cells/ml. Low flocculating yeast is around 1 billion/ml on average and high flocculating yeast compacts to just below 3 billion/ml on average. S-05 isn't the best flocculator, but I haven't measured this exact strain.

Also, the conditions in which it was resuspended (how much liquid was remaining) obviously play a big part. My numbers are based on trying to decant as much beer as possible, then having the yeast settle out for more than 1 wk at 4 degrees C.

I would use the 1.5 billion/ml and apply it to the standard thought of pitching 1,000,000 cells/ ml wort / degree Plato of whatever beer you plan on using. You may or may not need a starter.