pitching anxiety

I am going to be brewing a huge IPA this weekend and also a honeyweizen. I have a dry english ale yeast for the IPA, equipment for a 2L starter with a stirplate. However according to Mrmalty I think I need about 350 billion cells for this 1.090 beer. I don't think my one yeast is going to cut it. Can I make my wheat beer first, (with wheat beer yeast) and then pitch onto the cake later with my IPA and the yeast I described, or am I heading in the wrong direction?

I wouldn't do that as your wheat yeast will greatly outnumber your IPA yeast and be the yeast you taste.

Since you have a stir plate, I think that you are going to get close enough with the 2L starter. If you are worried, try this. Make a 1L starter at 1.040. Then step it up into a 2L starter at 1.080. You can get away with this because of the ample oxygen available because of the stir plate.

Take a look at this great article.

Since you're using dry yeast for your IPA, I would just go get another packet. They're cheap and that way you don't have to mess around with making a starter for dry yeast (not recommended). Just pitch 2 packs of rehydrated dry yeast. Assuming the packs are the 11.5g variety, that should be plenty.

Mr. Malty says you need 1.5 x 11.5g packs or 3.6 x 5g packs.

Oh, I missed it being dry yeast.

+1 to just pitching 2 packs.

Both are liquid yeast, WLP007 is the Dry Ale, Wyeast 1010 is the American wheat. There is a brew shop about 70 miles away but... ugh.. I don't want to drive that for a packet of yeast... in the future I will probably just keep dry yeast on stock. Im new here and don't know how to quote the starter comment, but wouldn't a 1.080 starter be too high gravity and stress the yeast? Or does pitching it into the 1.040 first make it ok? Btw thanks for the advice to not pitch into the wheat yeast, that makes sense

brewhaha2057 said:

There is a brew shop about 70 miles away but...

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Wow. For me, nearest LHBS is less than 5 minutes away, and they have another store 15 minutes away. Good reminder of how lucky I am...

Sorry, sounded like you had dry yeast - English Ale. Not liquid yeast - dry English Ale.

Do you have another container for a starter - empty growler, large mason jar, empty apple juice jug (glass)? If it were me I'd do a 2L starter with your stir plate and another 1L starter (give a swirl every 15-30 min) if you have an acceptable container. Pitch ~2/3 of your liquid yeast into the 2L starter and ~1/3 into the 1L starter

braceful said:

Sorry, sounded like you had dry yeast - English Ale. Not liquid yeast - dry English Ale.

Do you have another container for a starter - empty growler, large mason jar, empty apple juice jug (glass)? If it were me I'd do a 2L starter with your stir plate and another 1L starter (give a swirl every 15-30 min) if you have an acceptable container. Pitch ~2/3 of your liquid yeast into the 2L starter and ~1/3 into the 1L starter

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Thanks ill try this. I do have a 1 liter flask as well. Three liters of wort shouldn't throw the recipe off too much. Appreciate the replies