Conflicting Pitching Rates

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Cardog

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Alot of people here seems to abide by the mrmalty calculator as thier book of law. My question is if you go on wyeast website it suggests the an activator pack is good for a O.G. of 1.048 at 5 gal. (heck up to 1.060) without a starter yet, mrmalty suggest you need to make a 1.35L starter to acheive 168 bil cels (which is required by the calculator). The wyeast pack only has 100 bil cels. What gives??

Also, if we follow mrmalty and plug in an O.G. of 1.028 at 5 gal it says it doesn't require a starter. So has anyone ever told themselves (knowing thier making a beer of 1.028) "oh cool, I don't need to make a starter today" or do you still make a starter anyways and over pitch? Somebody please enlighten me on this. :confused:
 
Personally, I go by what works for me. I generally follow the mrmalty calculator, except sometimes I pitch an activator pack to a ~1.050 beer and it turns out just fine. I don't make a starter for anything less than 1.040, and that turns out fine too. For many styles (belgian and hefeweizen), I make a smaller starter than recommended, as I want to stress the yeast more to get more of the yeast derived flavors.
I also totally "overpitch" by pitching to yeast cakes for larger beers >1.070, or any lager over 1.055.

When all is said and done, I think you'll find that yeast tend to be very forgiving, and they've always made beer for me, sometimes better than others, and I learn from my mistakes. Do what you're comfortable with, and what works for you :mug:
 
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