How to make a starter for a high gravity beer?

Im brewing an American Barleywine with expected OG at 1.120. Due to the high gravity I could either pitch close to 5 packs of Wyeast ($45) or make a starter (which I've never done before). The Pitch-rate calculator I used said to pitch 2 packets in 5 liters of wort (1.040) or 1 pack in 12 liters. Does this sound right? It seems like a lot of starter wort. Say I pitched the one packet in 12 liters wort in my primary bucket. I wait 48 hours. Do I decant the wort off of the yeast? Is that really going to be enough yeast?

PorterHoarder said:

Im brewing an American Barleywine with expected OG at 1.120. Due to the high gravity I could either pitch close to 5 packs of Wyeast ($45) or make a starter (which I've never done before). The Pitch-rate calculator I used said to pitch 2 packets in 5 liters of wort (1.040) or 1 pack in 12 liters. Does this sound right? It seems like a lot of starter wort. Say I pitched the one packet in 12 liters wort in my primary bucket. I wait 48 hours. Do I decant the wort off of the yeast? Is that really going to be enough yeast?

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For that large of starter, yes, decant. You do not want all that starter beer in your batch.

If you can crash the starter it will be easier to decant and yes, if you actively shake the starter frequently you should grow up to the proper cell count

PorterHoarder said:

Im brewing an American Barleywine with expected OG at 1.120. Due to the high gravity I could either pitch close to 5 packs of Wyeast ($45) or make a starter (which I've never done before). The Pitch-rate calculator I used said to pitch 2 packets in 5 liters of wort (1.040) or 1 pack in 12 liters. Does this sound right? It seems like a lot of starter wort. Say I pitched the one packet in 12 liters wort in my primary bucket. I wait 48 hours. Do I decant the wort off of the yeast? Is that really going to be enough yeast?

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I would probably give yourself more than 48 hours, especially if you want the yeast to settle out so you can decant.

PorterHoarder said:

Say I pitched the one packet in 12 liters wort in my primary bucket.

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If you're doing that you might as well make a 3 gallon batch of a 1.040 ale and use the cake for your barley wine.

chickypad said:

If you're doing that you might as well make a 3 gallon batch of a 1.040 ale and use the cake for your barley wine.

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+1. I'd make a normal 5-gallon batch of 1.050 pale or amber with the same yeast and then use that whole cake for the barleywine.

I took chicky and floyds advice and went ahead and brewed a Dirty Bastard Clone with Wyeast's 1728 Scottish Ale. I'm a few days away from racking this to secondary. I wondering if putting my barleywine (which has been tweaked to 1.125 og) overtop the old cake is a good idea. My LHBS guy told me to put my wort right on top of the cake. However I'm concerned that all the break below the yeast will give me off flavors. Its no more than the usual amount of hop break. The DB clone will be on the yeast for 2 weeks and I'm thinking 2-3 weeks for the barleywine (assuming fermentation is complete [i cant think of why it wouldn't be]) then rack to secondary til it clears out and bottle for 1yr+. This should work right?

What was the OG on the Dirty Bastard clone? That's a high gravity beer is it not? You don't want to pitch onto a yeast cake from a high gravity beer as the yeast will be stressed out/tired/dead from fermenting a big beer.

As for your question about trub & break material, you can always wash the yeast to separate it out. But again, I wouldn't advise recycling yeast that fermented something that was high gravity.

Ah shoot! The OG was 1.086. The one thing I didn't take away from BigFloyd was that I need it to be around 1.040. Makes sense. End up with a cleaner yeast cake. Do you think washing it would make the yeast suitable? Otherwise I'm thinking I'll have to wait another 2-3 weeks so I can brew another lighter starter beer.

I wouldn't reuse yeast from batch above 1.070 OG, it is stressed from high gravity fermentation and probably mutated.
Next time you can make larger starter and pour some of it in sterilized jar for next usage.

I punched your numbers into yeastcalc.com and you should be able, depending on the age of your yeast pack, to do an initial 2L starter with 2 more 2L steps and it should get you to a big enough colony. That way you don't have to worry about brewing a whole other batch and can do your barley wine sooner. I did this with a pretty big tripel a while back and it worked really well.

hogwash said:

I punched your numbers into yeastcalc.com and you should be able, depending on the age of your yeast pack, to do an initial 2L starter with 2 more 2L steps and it should get you to a big enough colony. That way you don't have to worry about brewing a whole other batch and can do your barley wine sooner. I did this with a pretty big tripel a while back and it worked really well.

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I'm sorry if this is a noob question but what do you mean by "2 more 2L steps"

PorterHoarder said:

I'm sorry if this is a noob question but what do you mean by "2 more 2L steps"

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You start with a 2L starter, let it ferment out, cold crash and decant, then make another 2L starter wort, cool and add to the yeast, repeat.

Each step grows the cell count up to desired pitch rate.

What duboman said

duboman said:

You start with a 2L starter, let it ferment out, cold crash and decant, then make another 2L starter wort, cool and add to the yeast, repeat.

Each step grows the cell count up to desired pitch rate.

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So I should buy three smackpacks and make three 2L starters and combine them? At that point shouldn't I just buy another pack or two and skip the starter? I've never made a starter before so I guess I'm just wondering what the benefits of making three is versus making one 6L starter.

Or maybe I've misunderstood you. Are you saying make the initial starter (one yeast pack) and then use the yeast from that starter to make another one and then repeat? Sorry I'm such a needy noob.

PorterHoarder said:

Or maybe I've misunderstood you. Are you saying make the initial starter (one yeast pack) and then use the yeast from that starter to make another one and then repeat? Sorry I'm such a needy noob.

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Just one pack for initial starter is needed each consecutive starter will multiply off the initial growth of yeast.

PorterHoarder said:

Or maybe I've misunderstood you. Are you saying make the initial starter (one yeast pack) and then use the yeast from that starter to make another one and then repeat? Sorry I'm such a needy noob.

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Right. Here's what you would do:

Make a 2L starter with one pack. After 24-36 hours cold crash it and pour off the liquid. In another vessel, prepare 2L of wort. Cool it and pour it in the first vessel with the yeast. After 24-36 hours, cold crash and decant like before. Repeat until you have the desired yeast cell count.

Isn't there some German method of making beer where you start at a lower grav or volume, and then increase over time? Ugh I can't remember the name begins with a K I think. But the idea is you start with (for this OG) 2 gallons of beer, and pitch a vial, then after a couple of days add more wort until you come up to volume. Basically to make a starter you want air, but since you keep the air out here, it doesn't screw the beer up that way. Although since this is probably and AG, it would be a pain to keep mashing, or trying to keep a wort sanatized for a week before the last of it went in.

ACbrewer said:

Although since this is probably and AG, it would be a pain to keep mashing, or trying to keep a wort sanatized for a week before the last of it went in.

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What would be the most painful part of keeping wort sanitized for a week is finding out that you can't and that getting botulism can be fatal.

LovesIPA said:

What would be the most painful part of keeping wort sanitized for a week is finding out that you can't and that getting botulism can be fatal.

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I was thinking that this could be one of those processes that is easier for a comerical than homebrewer. I mean if you are making wort every day, what does it matter if a week later you make more high gravity and add it to a fermentor already in production? Where as the home brewer would be committing to either several days of brewing instead of one, or storage. Neither is particularly useful.

LovesIPA said:

Right. Here's what you would do:

Make a 2L starter with one pack. After 24-36 hours cold crash it and pour off the liquid. In another vessel, prepare 2L of wort. Cool it and pour it in the first vessel with the yeast. After 24-36 hours, cold crash and decant like before. Repeat until you have the desired yeast cell count.

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Awesome. I'm going to start this tomorrow. Thanks for all the help!

alcohol kills anything pathnogenic so botulism isn't a concern

Hopper5000 said:

alcohol kills anything pathnogenic so botulism isn't a concern

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He was talking about keeping wort around. Wort does not contain any alcohol.

ya i know, just saying... you could reboil too and that would kil everything

Boiling doesn't kill botulism. The spores are heat resistant and you have to raise the wort temperature to 240 degrees to kill them. Unless you have a pressure cooker or some other way of raising the temperature that high, boiled wort contains millions of live botulism spores. This is why it's critical to pitch yeast promptly after cooling wort. If you do, the yeast overwhelm the botulism spores and they don't have a chance to reproduce. If you let it sit around for a week before pitching yeast into it - well, I wouldn't drink it.

Disclaimer - I am no expert and this is from what I've read. I could be misunderstanding what I read or the source could be wrong. YMMV.

I agree with the other posters about using trub from a previous batch. I use this method continuously so that 1 Wyeast package carries across 10 successive batches of cake re-use. All of the batches are about 9% final ABV and they all turn out consistently great, so I disagree with the other posters who said a high AVB batch will stress the yeast beyond usability. My main concern is that the batches have similar hop properties because I don't strain my wort and all of the hop residue is in the final trub cake.

Oh ok mybad, I am no expert either so I probably shouldn't comment.

10 batches? Wow! I didn't think you could use them that long.

As far as repitching on top of the cake, I have done some high gravity batched around 10% with the same yeast multiple times with good results. You just have to keep the temps down and make sure your ready for an insane amount of fermentation really fast.

I pitched over a cake from a 1.058 batch. Holy guacamole! My blow off tube needed a blowoff tube. 5 hours after pitching and it was a firestorm of fermentation. Thanks for all your help everyone! If I remember ill bump this thread a year from now and say how it turned out. Haha

sounds good and glad it worked out. pitching on a cake will make it ferment very quickly and violently. i was fermenting in a buddies conical on a cake and it looked like it was going to blow up. blow off sounded like a jet engine...

When I pitch on a cake, I cool the wort to the low end of the yeast's temperature range.

I said I'd bump this. Turned out awful. haha. My time/effort/money/patience didn't pay off. However I've gone all grain since then and have been making some pretty fine beers if I do say so myself.... but really just awful. Like arsenic and transmission fluid.