Yeast for 20 Gallon Brew

[Luzer]

I'm going to be brewing a 20 gallon SNPA clone, at 1.045, and was wondering if I could use 5 packets of US-05. I do have an air pump to make a yeast starter but according to Mr. Malty I would need 5 liters.

Thanks for the help.

 

[bschot]

Its really up to you what yeast you want to use, I personally would rather build the 5 liter starter. I think I've had better results with liquid yeast. I wouldn't pour the entire starter into my beer I would wait till the yeast finishes and pour the excess beer off and pitch. The only downside of using the liquid yeast is having to aerate, you may need a paint stirrer on a drill to get adequate aeration.

 

[Luzer]

Looks like I was picking a really old date for my yeast in the calculator. I'm going to go with liquid yeast and see if I can borrow another 2 liter flask or find a gallon carboy.

Just to have someone else check. I have 20 gal batch at 1.045 and the yeast, I hope, is less than 2 months old. If I do two 2 L starters I should be ok? To make the starter of 1.036 I boil 2 L of water and 6.43oz of DME and put it on a stir plate or an aquarium pump for a day.

Would it hurt to go longer than a day?

 

[kwadric]

From what I've read, the starter volume as listed in the calculators is the final volume. So a 2L starter is the DME plus enough water to get up to a total of 2L.

For a much better explanation:
http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php