wyeast 3068 question

[wickman6]

I'm brewing 20 gallons of EdWort's Bavarian Hefeweizen for my upcoming wedding. I've brewed it before with great success and I'd like to repeat it, but have a couple questions on yeast.

In the past I've always pitched one smack pack with no starter. This is the only beer I don't make a starter for with liquid yeast. I have 1 fresh smack pack, and I'd like to grow it to ferment all 4 batches. So, on with the questions...

1. Will stepping up a starter of this yeast push back the esters that I want in my beer?

2. I think I should aim for the cell count that I've used before, but yeast calculators suggest more than that. Should I stick with the cell counts that brought success?

This is what I'm going for-

Thanks!

 

[BobC]

You can do a 1g starter if you have a stir plate or 3.5g with out one. If you pitch it in 5g with out a starter I'm sure you can make a 3.5g starter with one packet and wait till you see activity and then start brewing about 24hrs after that.