How to step up a yeast starter

I'm targeting 1.060 OG for my next brew, which will be an American stout. I will be using Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50. I have one Activator pack manufactured Sept 6, 2011. This will be a 10 gallon brew. I don't have a stirplate yet or an O2 system (will be buying both soon, but not in time for this brew) so I'll be using my typical "intermittant shaking" method for my starter.

I always make a starter, but I usually just make a single step 1500 ml starter about a day before pitching, so I'm pretty sure I'm always underpitching my 10 gallon batches. I want to correct that this time and pitch the right amount of yeast.

Mr. Malty calculator says for my yeast date, volume, OG, yeast production date, and method, I need to start with 2 activator packs and an 8.56 liter starter. That's with the "growth factor" slider all the way to the right.

I only have 1 pack of yeast and a 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask. That size flask is only good for a 1.5 liter starter, roughly. I have a gallon jug which I think would accommodate a 2.5 liter starter, maybe a bit moer. Or a 5 gallon carboy.

I don't have a brew day picked yet, so I'm flexible on the length of time required, but I can't go pick up another pack of yeast until the weekend, and I want to get started tomorrow. How can I go about stepping up this single Activator pack to the required 417 billion cells efficiently?

If you use your 1 gallon jug, it looks like you can get to your target pitching rate by starting with a 3L starter, and then stepping it up with another 3L starter.

step up your yeast? make beer! just make a 5 gal batch of beer, then pitch it on the 10 gal. you'll have to wait a week for the first one, but you'll be drinkin that in no time.

Just make your normal starter with the 2000mL then when its done decant and pour yeast into the gallon jag filled with wort for next starter (2.5L in the jug should do fine). Try to shake both starters as much as you can to help growth.

michaeltrego said:

If you use your 1 gallon jug, it looks like you can get to your target pitching rate by starting with a 3L starter, and then stepping it up with another 3L starter.

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That sounds right if I were starting with the 2 packs of yeast that Mr. Malty says I need. But I've only got one. Maybe starting with 3L and stepping up two times, 3L each, instead of once? I don't know how to calculate the yeast growth.

brewmonk said:

step up your yeast? make beer! just make a 5 gal batch of beer, then pitch it on the 10 gal. you'll have to wait a week for the first one, but you'll be drinkin that in no time.

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Yes, I think that would do the trick too. I could easily grow a sufficient sized starter for a 5 gallon batch in a reasonable time probably without stepping it up. Something simple like a SMASH using the same hops that I plan to use for my stout would get me plenty of yeast cake to pitch for my stout.

Plus I could harvest half the yeast from my conical as soon as primary fermentation is done, and transfer the beer and the rest of the cake to a carboy to finish up. Normally I don't secondary, but in this case it would free up my conical sooner for the stout.

Thanks for that suggestion. That's definitely a workable idea. And I'd have a 5 gallon SMASH to enjoy.

dezman said:

Just make your normal starter with the 2000mL then when its done decant and pour yeast into the gallon jag filled with wort for next starter (2.5L in the jug should do fine). Try to shake both starters as much as you can to help growth.

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Yep, that was what I was figuring, but that amount of starter is predicated by Mr. Malty on starting with two packs of yeast, whereas I only have one.

billtzk said:

That sounds right if I were starting with the 2 packs of yeast that Mr. Malty says I need. But I've only got one. Maybe starting with 3L and stepping up two times, 3L each, instead of once? I don't know how to calculate the yeast growth.

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In Mr. Malty slide the growth factor all the way to the right. Set your OG, viability date and intermittent shaking. Then play with the volume until the number of vials is 1 and liters of starter is 2.99. This should show 4.28 gallons (which doesn't really matter at this point), and you will see that it results in 178 billion cells. This is your first step starter. Now uncheck the viability box and put 178 in the viability %. Change the volume to 10 gallons. You will see 2.8 liters are required to grow 178 billion up to to 417 billion cells. This is your second step starter. Voila.

Now that is a clever way to use the calculator. But why does starting with 178 % viability equate to 178 billion cells?

Or you could use this. It correlates with Mr. Malty, and is much easier to use. Enter the info for your wort. Then set the date of your smackpack, then enter 3 liters with intermittent shaking for the first step, and 3 liters with intermittent shaking for the second step, and you are there.

billtzk said:

Now that is a clever way to use the calculator. But why does starting with 178 % viability equate to 178 billion cells?

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I learned that trick from Thirsty Boy. Mr. Malty assumes 100 billion cells of 100% viable yeast in one vial in a perfect world. So your viability will go down if your yeast has an older production date, or it can go up if you imagine your starter is mega "vial" of really fresh yeast.

Sulli - you're right, that calculator is easier to use and does appear to correlate to Mr. Malty. Thank you. (I'm guessing that is your site and calculator? Very nice.)

michael - that makes sense now. Both White Labs and Wyeast claim about 100 billion cells at full viability. Thank you.

So, it turns out that Denny's Favorite 50 - Wyeast 1450 - is a low flocculating yeast. I've got to grow this starter to a pitchable quantity through two stages. It's been 24 hours since I pitched into the first 3 liters of starter wort, and the yeast is still mostly suspended. There's plenty of krausen still on top, and only a very thin layer of floc'd yeast on the bottom.

How long does this yeast take to flocculate appreciably? It's looking like if I wait for the yeast to flocculate so I can decant the spent wort and pitch it into the second 3 liter starter wort, I won't be brewing for another week.

To speed this up, I'm considering just adding another three liters to the current wort, then wait 24 hours and cold crash it until it's clear. I can't pitch 6 liters of oxidized starter into my stout. Anyone know how long it takes for the Denny's Favorite 50 yeast to flocculate out at 36F degrees?

I changed my mind and decided to put it in the fridge to floc out so I can decant before going to step 2. I'm not in too much of a hurry to brew this stout, so I don't mind if it takes a while. I'll brew an English Mild while I'm waiting for this starter to be ready.

Anybody have a guesstimate of the number of yeast cells in the dregs of a bottle of beer - Bell's Amber Ale (5.8% ABV) to be precise? Got to start somewhere.

jmf143 said:

Anybody have a guesstimate of the number of yeast cells in the dregs of a bottle of beer - Bell's Amber Ale (5.8% ABV) to be precise? Got to start somewhere.

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You'd do better starting a new thread for that question.

A question about YeastCalc.

Say the first step has a starter volume of 1.5 liters and the second is 2.5 liters. Does the volume of the second include the first 1.5 liters or is that the additional amount? If that is the additional amount do I need a 4 liter + vessel or can I decant the excess liquid from the first one and just add the slurry to the the 2.5 liters?

Spartan1979 said:

A question about YeastCalc.

Say the first step has a starter volume of 1.5 liters and the second is 2.5 liters. Does the volume of the second include the first 1.5 liters or is that the additional amount? If that is the additional amount do I need a 4 liter + vessel or can I decant the excess liquid from the first one and just add the slurry to the the 2.5 liters?

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The volume of the second step is the amount of new wort added to the starter whether you decant or not. However, I would recommend decanting.

Chilling, decanting, and then adding the full 2.5 liters certainly sounds like a sensible approach, but it costs about a day, give-or-take.

Adding 2.5 liters on top of the original 1.5 liters would result in a wort gravity much lower than the nominal target of 1.040, assuming that the fermentable sugars from the initial wort have been largely or completely consumed. That is, you'd have about 250 g of DME in 4 liters of liquid.

Would it be a reasonable alternative approach to prepare 1 liter of new starter wort using 2.5 liters' worth of DME (ie, 250 grams), and then add that high-gravity wort to the 1.5 liters of now-depleted starter? At least in theory, that should result in roughly 2.5 liters of 1.040 wort. The advantage of this is not needing the extra day to chill and decant the initial batch. Are there any downsides?

Sulli said:

Or you could use this. It correlates with Mr. Malty, and is much easier to use. Enter the info for your wort. Then set the date of your smackpack, then enter 3 liters with intermittent shaking for the first step, and 3 liters with intermittent shaking for the second step, and you are there.

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Awesome!! Just got done playing with the YeastCalc.com http://www.fyurl.com/rr.php?c=2&site=www.homebrewtalk.com&url=http://www.yeastcalc.com/, very nice. His data seems to outperform Mr. Malty to me too. Nice to see that kind of work being done. Thanks very much for sharing the link.

oshucks said:

Chilling, decanting, and then adding the full 2.5 liters certainly sounds like a sensible approach, but it costs about a day, give-or-take.

Adding 2.5 liters on top of the original 1.5 liters would result in a wort gravity much lower than the nominal target of 1.040, assuming that the fermentable sugars from the initial wort have been largely or completely consumed. That is, you'd have about 250 g of DME in 4 liters of liquid.

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Does this make sense? I'm looking to step up a 4L starter to 8L starter, and I (unfortunately) don't have time to chill/decant.

sicklesr said:

Does this make sense? I'm looking to step up a 4L starter to 8L starter, and I (unfortunately) don't have time to chill/decant.

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kind of an old thread, u might be better off starting another one...