White Labs Yeast

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natehilde

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I was doing some research on the various factors affecting yeast product. I didn't realize exactly how much those little buggers affect the finished product. Just out of curiosity, anybody know what the pitch rate is of one white labs tube?
 
http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_FAQ.html
After testing for purity, we package each vial with 30 to 50 billion yeast cells, which is between 2 to 10 times more yeast than most other liquid yeast products on the market. This corresponds to a pint size starter. This is a common yeast starter size used in homebrewing for the last 15 years. Most of the liquid yeast on the market is packaged in small quantities, and should not be used directly in 5 gallons. We have gone extra step here at White Labs and made the pint starter for you. What we make is actually superior to a pint starter made at home because we produce our yeast in a sterile laboratory environment with maximum cell health and viability. Lag times are typically between 5-15 hours.
I think this is still underpitching for an average gravity 5g batch of ale and usually do a 2qt/2l starter for most of my ales.
 
Most people that have been in brewing very long seem to agree that a common problem is low pitch rates. I have taken to dividing out each tube into approximately six starters, each time that i'm go to brew, I take approximately a sixth of a tube and make a 1000ml starter. This takes approximately a weeks time. So far I have been very successful all starters have had very healthy fermentation cycles, most start within 6 to 8 hrs. In this way I defray the cost of yeast and frankly it makes my hobby a lot more fun, learning to manipulate the yeast!!!!
 
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