GY054 Starter?

[turbo 6]

I'm brewing an NEIPA tomorrow and have two packs of Gigayeast 054. The pack says "starter required" on the front by the date and on the back it says it's good for up to 1.070 in 5 gallons. I expect my OG to be in the 1.050 range.
I'm brewing 10 gallons so I made a starter from one pack. I only have a 1k ml flask, so I couldn't use both packs of yeast that I have.

Is it ok to pitch from the packet? Or will the starter (1.040 OG on a stir plate for 24 hours) produce enough cells for 10 gallons of wort?

 

[Hopsimus]

According to Beersmith a 10 gallon batch at 1.050 requires 350 billion cells (other online tools will probably give similar results, but I didn't check).
To get that many cells you would need a 1.37L starter (assuming 200 billion cells in the Gigayeast pack which I believe is the standard for theirs).

You can pitch directly from the packet, but you generally get better results if you do a starter first.

In your case you could pitch both packets direct and you would end up with ~400 billion cells. This would be overpitching a bit, but you'll probably be fine.

I'd recommend getting a bigger flask for next time

Hope that helps!

 

[turbo 6]

Definitely getting a bigger flask. So I guess I'll pitch the starter in one carboy and the packet in the other.

 

[Hopsimus]

BTW, if you did a 1L starter, you probably ended up with around 270 billion cells. You could pitch that plus half of the other pack. That would probably be better than no start at all. And that way you wouldn't be overpitching as much.

If you are using 2 carboys, I'd recommend putting half of the starter in both, and a quarter of the other packet in both (so half of the pack total).

 

[turbo 6]

Yeah that would prevent over pitching. Thanks for the advice, that's what I'll do.