How many yeast is that?, give me your best shot

Im making a starter for tomorrow night brewing, i started with 1ml slurry freezing in 130ml of DME wort (1.040), after 24h i stepped it up in to 2L flask with 1.3L wort, after 24h i cold crashed it and this is what it looks like now. Im going to decant and add another 1.5L of wort tomorrow morning around 15h before pitching. Do you think i will have enough yeast for 10gal 1.070 wort?, if lots of ppl think its not enough i can delay my brewing by another day and step it 2x with 3L total. Also try to guess how many cells i will get at the end as im going to count the yeast later. O and this is wyeast 3787 strain frozen from 1st generation starter, sorry for on the side picture, i dont know how to flip it now

i'd say that's about 194.3 billion cells there...........




no, really....

there's really no way to tell how many yeast cells a yeast cake has in it. some pack dense, some not so much. what you have looks like a normal amount of yeast for a ~1L starter, but noone could tell you how many cells there are without looking at a sample under a microscope.

You can expect about 3 billion cells per milliliter of clean sediment.

By comparing to the same size flask filled with water this is 100-130ml of sediment so roughly 300bilion of cell, i guess i will just step it one more time with 1.5L, i should get more than 600bilion with that, mrMalty says 566 is required for my beer so i should be fine, im brewing tomorrow, yey!!

Malticulous said:

You can expect about 3 billion cells per milliliter of clean sediment.

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looks like i was way off, what is in the flask in firs post i decanted and added fresh 1.5L DME wort for 15h, starter was very active, i pitched in to 10gal of 1.070 wort but after counting cells today i had only 220 billion cells so i seriously underpitched, its belgian triple (im feeding sugar later today) so i hope it will be fine but for next time i will step it up one more time, i guess underpitching explains 22h lag time

I dunno, but if you keep your flask sideways like that then all the yeast are going to spill out.

Polboy said:

i guess underpitching explains 22h lag time

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I dont know my belgians are always a little pokey to take off using 500 and 3787 even when pitched in an active starter ... I think its all the damn chanting they do before actually getting to work.

Mine seem to do better in a warmer pitching temperature.. 70-75..

Neopol said:

I dont know my belgians are always a little pokey to take off using 500 and 3787 even when pitched in an active starter ... I think its all the damn chanting they do before actually getting to work.

Mine seem to do better in a warmer pitching temperature.. 70-75..

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WLP500 or 1214 are so damn slow to start, but I think they're totally worth it. I have 1214 in BDS that I pitched yesterday. It's just now starting to get going. I usually start actively fermenting 3-4 hours after pitching on most yeasts, so it always crosses my mind that the yeast I pitched might be bad, even though I know those yeasts are slow to start.

For future reference calculating numbers of cells without doing a count (hemocytometer) you can either look at the slurry or the volume of wort used to make it. I use the volume of wort used to make the starter. For this I use Maltose Falcon's website as a reference. Check it out they use a final step calc of 180-360MYC per mill of start wort ie 1L approx 200 Billion Yeast Cells.

Maltose Falcon Website : http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-propagation-and-maintenance-principles-and-practices

Clem

5.....5 yeasts.

Lunchtime said:

5.....5 yeasts.

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one yeasty yeast, two yeasty yeast........

one! one yeastie yeast! A-HA-HA-HA-HA!

two! two yeastie yeasts! A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

etc...

Thanks for interesting article but in my case starter volume doesn't reflect cell number in the same way, according to the website from 3L i should have 600 billion of cells, i got only 220 or so after i count it with hemocytometer

Clementine said:

For future reference calculating numbers of cells without doing a count (hemocytometer) you can either look at the slurry or the volume of wort used to make it. I use the volume of wort used to make the starter. For this I use Maltose Falcon's website as a reference. Check it out they use a final step calc of 180-360MYC per mill of start wort ie 1L approx 200 Billion Yeast Cells.

Maltose Falcon Website : http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-propagation-and-maintenance-principles-and-practices

Clem

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btw... what does the guy who guesses right win?

Polboy.. it doesn't look like enough to me! I'd say it needs to be at least doubled if not trippled for 10 gallons IMO.. I probablly pitch 1.5 times that amount in 5.75 gallons!

ChshreCat said:

btw... what does the guy who guesses right win?

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This is what I wondered. Is there a full electric 10 gallon setup with all computer controls as the prize?

If so I say 2 billion 487 million 672 thousand 4 hundred 74 at the time of the picture.

I was going to say 254 billion. Not bad considering the variables.

That is a nice site, after playing with it looks like for 10gal batches i need 4l flask to step it up one more time in bigger volume, that will be over 1lb of DME for starters, dang
Thanks

Polboy said:

That is a nice site, after playing with it looks like for 10gal batches i need 4l flask to step it up one more time in bigger volume, that will be over 1lb of DME for starters, dang
Thanks

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Next batch you brew work into the recipe an extra .5-1 gallon and separate it off, jar it and store the son ***** somewhere for future use. Come starter time pull it out, dilute down if needed and boil it up like a starter. I started doing this 4 or 5 brews ago and it's nice to not have to waste 3-5$ in DME depending who I bought my grains from. Hell you can even use it to make a mini beer if you feel inclined to do so.

SwampassJ said:

Next batch you brew work into the recipe an extra .5-1 gallon and separate it off, jar it and store the son ***** somewhere for future use. Come starter time pull it out, dilute down if needed and boil it up like a starter. I started doing this 4 or 5 brews ago and it's nice to not have to waste 3-5$ in DME depending who I bought my grains from. Hell you can even use it to make a mini beer if you feel inclined to do so.

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^^ I do this too! Saves a bunch of money!

i like the idea, im little limited by the size of my BK, its 13gal so i have to top it off for 10gal batch (11 in fermenter) but i should be able to pull off 2L of 1.070 wort next time, thats should be enough for a nice starter, i think im gona freeze it in pet bottles for few weeks