Nut brown yeast dillemma

[HopsMan]

Question for you guys, I'm doing a ten gallon nut brown tomorrow, and came to realize I only have one packet of S-04. I have a packet of Muntons as well, and while I would like to pitch two packets, I'm curious how mixing the two would work. I thought about doing a starter, but I know feelings are mixed on doing starters with dry yeast. Any issues with pitching two separate types of yeast? Or would one packet work reasonably well enough to do the job on 10 gallons (even though I know cell count would be quite lower than is recommended). Original gravity should be in the mid 1.06's.

Thanks!

 

[Jwood]

One packet is not nearly enough for 10 gallons in the 1060's. When pitching two packets, one strain tends to dominate the other so the finished flavor profile is hard to comment on. I can't comment on the quality of the Muntons yeast as well as I have never used it.

Making a starter for dry yeast is not recommended because it can actually be detrimental to the yeast's performance.

My advice is wait until you can get an appropriate amount of yeast. I wouldn't recommend risking 10 gallons of beer on inadequate yeast health/conditions when that is a large majority of the quality of the finished product.

And on a final note, even if you rehydrated 2 11.5 g packets of dry yeast and got 100% viability, you'd still be underpitching (albeit not by much).

 

[HopsMan]

I had a feeling waiting to get a couple more packets was going to be the better of all the options. Thanks for the reply!