First Time Liquid Yeast Use Question

Hi guys,

I am starting to brew heavily now. My buddy came back after a month of work and he thinks the brewing idea is really cool so I've convinced him to join me in brewing. He bought a fermenter and yesterday we spent about 6-7 hours brewing (and drinking a lot!)

The beer I made was the Amber Ale described in John Palmer's book. I used dry yeast, put it in my 5 gal fermenter, and within a few hours it was already going great.

The beer my friend and I made together was a barleywine (also described in Palmer's book). However, the brewstore had run out of dry yeast so we were forced to use liquid. However, my friend, since he wanted to brew really bad, decided to see if we could skip the starter. This Wyeast had one of those smack-packets. Palmer recommends making a 1 gal starter to get 400 billion cells but my thought is that the fermenter will just act as a big starter, but it will take a few days for the yeast to get going (since the starter takes a few days).

Well, so far, the barleywine has been sitting there doing nothing. I see a yeast layer on the bottom, but no krausen has formed. The smack-pack caused the yeast to inflate the package, so I'm sure the yeast is viable. Am I right in my thought that it's just going to take longer since we didn't use a starter?

Yup. The yeast is going through a replication phase right now and will take off soon enough. The problem with this is that it can stress out the yeast and produce off flavors, and in a beer like a barley wine, it can make the yeast finish working a little too early, leaving your beer under-attenuated. However, since you're new, these things won't likely be flaws you will be as critical of just yet. Temperature control is much more important at this stage.

I'll depart from 99% of the posters here and say that for most beers you don't need a starter with a WYeast smackpack. However, not using a starter means you're going to get stronger flavors off the yeast, and those flavors vary from strain to strain. If you like real clean beers, starters are probably for you. If you like estery "yeasty" flavors, skip 'em.

Having said that, with a high gravity beer like barleywine I'd either go with a starter or at least pitch two packs. It should still be fine, though.

A smack pack isn't a little starter. It doesn't increase the advertised cell count, a starter would. Smacking it just proofs it. Adding a second smack pack will certainly increase cell count. Sanitation and patience will be your friend without a high cell count.

*edit* And an Activator smack is much better to pitch without a starter than a Proagator is. Cell count.