But, how about the 10 tubes of frozen yeast? Even if you combine them, you end up with only 10 mls of yeast, which seems like it would never have enough viable cells to ignite a starter? Does that make sense?
for the 1 ml vials you pitch 1 vial into 20-50ml of sterlized wort "step up" and let it ferment out. Next pitch that whole 50 ml into a larger 200ml-1L starter and ferment out. At this point for a low gravity beer there should be plenty of yeast if using a stir plate. For high OG beer or no stir plate an additional step up is needed. Yeast grow like bacteria. It only take a VERY small amount and due to exponetial growth a "step up" method will yeld tons of yeast