Hey Bob, I completely agree with your argument that we should not be promoting old techniques, but I don’t know if that is the case here. We could be confusing making a starter with pitching the proper cell count. Isn’t it possible to have the right cell count without a starter?
While possible, the concatenation of circumstances is so rare as to be worthy of dismissal. In the first place the fresh wort must be of a sufficiently low gravity - which homebrewers as a rule don't do!
. In the second, the wort must be very well aerated - and in my experience brewers who don't make starters are also completely unequipped to aerate. In the third, read below.
Do you disagree with White / Zainasheff in YEAST when they say “when pitching a fresh, laboratory culture grown with aeration and good nutrition, a brewer can use up to 50 percent lower pitching rate?” That would mean that a 1.048 ale wort that needed 180 billion cells for their recommended .75 million count, now would be fine with a fresh vial of 100 billion cells.
While I don't disagree on the face of it, because the numbers are fine in a test ferment, those numbers are dependent on something no homebrewer is likely to ever see - a truly
fresh sample. By
fresh, we're talking shipped from the yeast bank yesterday afternoon on dry ice. You just don't get that - or at least I don't - from a LHBS, much less a mail-order supplier.
Second, I find the 0.75 million number too low. If that number is already too low, trending the pitch concentration even lower is unwise. Of course, that's my opinion, but it's one with a lot of backup - the 1M/1ml/1°P is one that been in use for decades, works with both ales and lagers, and is proved by literally millions of barrels of beer to work. There was no reason for JZ et al to fiddle with that number other than "because it is there".
I don't fault them for that, because clearly their numbers are functional for their purposes, but I don't see a reason for it in the first place, other than to manufacture something they can hang their names on. Which
never happens in academia!
There are also situations where it's a good idea to underpitch, like if you wish to brew an estery ale but your house yeast is a low ester producer. Again, that's a place homebrewers very seldom go, because very, very few of us could be said to have a "house" yeast. When we want a higher ester producer, we don't need to trick a strain like 1056 into tasting English; we just buy a sample of Ringwood or some other English strain.
I’m reading that when Chris White says “a fresh laboratory culture grown with aeration and good nutrition” he means one of his vials, but this could be a bad assumption.
I don't think that's a bad assumption at all. Though I like to think the best of people, he is a man with a product to sell, employees to pay, etc. Don't take that to mean I think he's trying to bilk people! On the contrary, no sane business owner would do something like that. However, I
do believe he's talking about a situation which A. few homebrewers experience, and B. one which though
functional is
suboptimal, because a brewer who lacks the time and/or equipment to brew a starter will 99% of the time also lack the time and/or equipment to properly aerate and manage yeast nutrients. It's one thing to maximize the yeast's environment in a lab. It's another for a guy in his kitchen.
(sorry for repeating this from the other starter thread, but I seriously want to hear your opinion)
No worries! I hadn't seen this other thread, and I have no problem listening to my own voice.
Cheers!
Bob