Production Brewery Yeast Amounts

What do the big boys do for yeast? I know they can order more viable and larger yeast packs but how do they build starters, save yeast, etc? How much are the typically pitching?

Any pics of the amount of yeast they are using?

The very big boys manage their own yeast labs, complete with yeast geneticists.

The micros tend to buy yeast from the same companies we do: white labs, wyeast, danstar, etc. Like you mentioned, white labs and wyeast sell bigger jugs of the same stuff we buy in smackpacks and vials, enough to pitch whatever size batch they are making. Most of the breweries I've seen buy enough yeast to be able to skip making a starter. From there, a lot (most?) of them bottom crop and wash for a certain number of generations until they start seeing genetic drift. Reading the probrewer forums, I see a lot of variation in how many generations they'll go between reculturing. For some it is as few as 5, for others up to 50. The breweries with yeast labs tend to be able to go longer.

Pitching rates are roughly linear to size. So, if we're pitching two 30mL vials of culture in 5 gallons, a ten barrel batch is pitching something along the lines of 60 times that (a gallon). A 100 barrel batch is about 600 times that (ten gallons). These numbers are pulled out of nowhere but should give a sense of scale, though I imagine different breweries do things very diffierently.

Even larger breweries like Rogue that use their own proprietary strain count on the yeast labs for help keeping their culture pure. From what I recall, White Labs sends Rogue a new culture of pacman every six months or so to rebuild their stock.

I was at Highland Brewery in Asheville about a year ago and they had just purchased a yeast propagator. I was surprised because I believe they brew 30 or maybe 50bbl batches. Definitely micro, but one of the bigger five breweries in the south.

Anyway, they claimed they could essentially buy one vial of yeast and culture it up to their pitching rates. In reality they probably don't start that small.

It was a cool piece of equipment - it looked like two 1bbl containers with a bunch of tubing in between them. Very loud too. I didn't really have time to ask much about how it works.

+1 to much of what MalFet said. In addition, a lot of breweries use 500g bricks of dry yeast as well.

I've visited O'Dells many times. They have a lab and full time biologist to grow yeast.

Ommegang has a dedicated guy studying the yeast. Thought that was pretty cool.

Boulevard grows up from slants or stabs or whatever. They have the strain stored cryogenically by a third party. This is what most regional breweries with a lab do.

Usually they would do what you or I would do to grow up from a slant, except maybe under a laminar flow hood, and give something like a 5-20 liter starter to the brewery that does the final step often in purpose built equipment that continuously aerates and defoams.

ETA: Then of course they bottom crop for several generations before repeating. Nearly every US brewery bottom crops.

Interesting, does anyone have any pictures of bottom cropping or that show how much yeast the micro's pitch? I pitched the slurry from a 1 gallon starter into a 5 gallon batch yesterday. I know it's probably over pitching but my ferment. temps are a little low plus I am trying to grow some yeast to save.

I believe breweries pitch one pound per barrel of the best slurry.

Yes, pound per barrel is a rule of thumb. This is mostly trub free slurry from very soon after terminal gravity is reached though. Not stuff from the bottom of a carboy that has been sitting for a month with hops and break in it.