Limited yeast options, should I step or try something else?

[ickmund]

So I was shooting for a double SMaSH brew weekend (1.065 IPA), brewing both Saturday and Sunday. Had everything but the malt, picked it up milled today.

Was planning on doing a 2L starter, pitch 1.5L and then do another 2L starter with the remainder for the next day. I didn't consider the age of the yeast, with a production date of 24/june/2014. So there's no way that plan is going to work.

What are my options here? If I let this run on the stir plate for 24h, then make another 3L starter and pitch the whole 2L onto that, could that be enough? I'm assuming my stir plate won't handle 5L, so it will be shaken manually through Saturday.

If I understand YeastCalculator.com correctly, I'll put 2L into step 1, 3L into step 2. This will yield between 430 and 587 billion cells depending on what stir plate option I choose there. My 42L total at 1.065 will need 500b cells.

Is that how I should use yeastcalculator for my situation?

Will stepping without chilling and decanting have a negative impact on the yeast?

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I also have about a third of some yeast I washed about 3 weeks ago, from a similar styled beer. Should I use this one instead for the second brew? If I do a starter right after pitching the first one, I guess I can get it to run for about 18 hours.

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I now understand that I need to rebuild my stirplate to take two starters, but I could really use some savvy advice for this brew weekend!



/Magnus

 

[Headley_Lamarr]

Not sure how convenient the store is, but I'd just grab a few packs of S-05 and call it a day. It will be good yeast for a SMaSH as it won't produce a ton of flavor that would interfere with the grain/hops.

 

[j1n]

Yeah, i think you will be fine with the step up

what kind of stir plate do you have?

My home made one can only do 2L starters max. i bought one so i can do 5L starters. the one i bought can spin extremely fast.

 

[WouldBeBrewmaster]

If you have time to step up the starter that is not a bad idea. If the yeast is four months old it's not THAT BAD. I have pitched the entire starter wort and all before and never had a problem. For a SMaSH you have nothing to worry about in terms of flavor, assuming the extract is the same as the malt (ie 2-row in the recipe, light DME in the starter).

I wouldn't repitch slurry if the SG of the batch was as high as this, the high alcohol environment will stress the yeast. A good way to avoid doing yeast starters and not stressing the yeast is brewing a session beer that is lightly hopped, pitching the vial/package, and then harvesting and washing the slurry.

Having a packet or two of dry yeast on hand is never a bad idea either. For $3 you can throw a package in the fridge to have for emergencies or a spur of the moment brew day.

 

[ickmund]

Cheers for the replies guys.

I don't reckon I have time to step up properly, what I would have to do is probably pitch the entire 2L starter into another 3L starter wort.

In the end, I think I'll chalk this one up as a learning experience and hike down to the LHBS for some S-05, then chill and decant this starter and hope I get to brew again soon so that it's still viable.

That brings me to another question: having heard of people harvesting from their starters and being on gen 17+, how do you calculate for the cell counts? Would it be like a 17 step starter? Or will the yeast have ample rest that you just count it as a fresh new starter for every gen?