yeast starter for barley wine? Or will dry yeast work?

I'm trying to brew up an ag barley wine tomorrow night (Friday) since my weekend is pretty packed and I want to get a brew in. I don't have any yeast right now and I'm not sure if I'll have time before tomorrow to grab some. I'm planning a 2.5 gallon batch and I was wondering if dry yeast would be ok to use on a big beer or if I should just make the wort and make the starter and pitch it on Sunday night? Or, can I make the starter before I start to brew and pitch it when I normally would at the end of the brew day? (planning on using WLP001)

I am going to bottle an oatmeal chocolate stout tomorrow also that I used safale 04 (I think) with. Not sure if pitching a barley wine would be good on top of an oatmeal chocolate stout slurry or not... I'm thinking not because of the chocolate but figured I'd toss the idea out there anyway.

If you're going big (1.100+), then you would need at least a 750mL-1L stir-plated, nutrient rich starter, even on a 2.5 gal brew, with WLP001. If you go the dry yeast route, a single pack of reasonably fresh S-04 would do it, as long as you rehydrate per their recommendations. Doing a simple starter at the beginning of your brew day with a liquid yeast would wake them up and get them ready for pitching, but I don't think you would see much in the way of an increased number of pitchable cells. You could do a single vial of WLP001, I guess, but it may need to sit in the primary for a longer duration than what you planned.

I would think that a packet of dry yeast would work just fine, especially with a 2.5 gallon batch. I have read that S-05 is the dry equivalent of the WL001. Just follow the directions on the packet about "proofing" the yeast.

BTW, I wouldn't make just 2.5 gallons. A good Barley Wine won't last long.

TRainH2o said:

I have read that S-04 is the dry equivalent of the WL001.

Click to expand...

This is not correct. US-05 would be a good equivalent dry yeast for WLP001. S-04 is a pretty estery English strain.

jsguitar said:

This is not correct. US-05 would be a good equivalent dry yeast for WLP001. S-04 is a pretty estery English strain.

Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct, I mistyped.

TRainH2o said:

I would think that a packet of dry yeast would work just fine, especially with a 2.5 gallon batch. I have read that S-05 is the dry equivalent of the WL001. Just follow the directions on the packet about "proofing" the yeast.

BTW, I wouldn't make just 2.5 gallons. A good Barley Wine won't last long.

Click to expand...

Cool. I'll give the US-05 a go and see how it goes.

I'm only making 2.5 gallons because my 15 gallon setup hasn't arrived in the mail yet :rockin:

zzARzz said:

If you're going big (1.100+), then you would need at least a 750mL-1L stir-plated, nutrient rich starter, even on a 2.5 gal brew, with WLP001. If you go the dry yeast route, a single pack of reasonably fresh S-04 would do it, as long as you rehydrate per their recommendations. Doing a simple starter at the beginning of your brew day with a liquid yeast would wake them up and get them ready for pitching, but I don't think you would see much in the way of an increased number of pitchable cells. You could do a single vial of WLP001, I guess, but it may need to sit in the primary for a longer duration than what you planned.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what og I'm going to get since I haven't really planned out the recipe yet. Probably at least 1.090... I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to brew a BW since I was unsure about the yeast starter situation. Now that I think I can use dry yeast I'll start to put something together. Thanks for the input!