Double pitch or starter?

I am going to be making the AHS strong ale kit soon (will be my first or second all grain). When I ordered it, it suggested double pitching, so I ordered two things of wlp005. I also just started to make yeast starters so I wasn't sure what I sure do in this case. Should I just make a starter, make a starter with one and pitch both, or make a starter with both?

I'd make a small starter with both. Couldn't hurt.

What's the expected OG? Double pitching is probably OK. Generally a starter is preferred to get the population up and get the little yeasties active. If you have plenty of DME laying around, what I like to do is gradually step up my starter. So I might put 1/2 cup of DME in 4 cups water (boiled, obviously); the next day I'll add another 1/2 cup of DME in 4 cups water. Obviously, you can adjust the ratio of DME to water to more closely match your target OG.

Hammy71 said:

I'd make a small starter with both. Couldn't hurt.

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Probably true, but adding two vials to a small starter is going to be overpitching for sure. You might not get much yeast growth as a result.

Go here:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Yeast calculator based on batch size, OG, ale or lager, etc versus the number of yeast cells in a standard wlp vial. You can change the slide on the bottom to include 2 yeast packs and it will tell you the size of the starter needed.

AHS says the OG is estimated to be .065, and will need 2.5 packages of liquid yeast for a proper pitch (according to Brewing Classic Styles). So if you throw the two packages in there, it will be slightly underpitching.

Alternatively, you could make a three-liter starter with only one package, and get a proper pitch. That might take 24 hours to reach high krausen, or three days if you want it to settle and decant the gross starter beer off the yeast.

If in a hurry, you can toss two packages in a very small starter (find volume with the pitching calculator).

Be sure to check mrmalty.com for how to make a good starter. It makes a huge difference.