Yeast Starter Step Up: Am I Over-Pitching?

[MrEggSandwich]

I am planning on brewing a Heady-type IPA on New Years Day (Not a bad start to the year!)

Target OG= 1.074
Batch size= 6 gallons in fermenter

Yeast is The Yeast Bay's Vermont Ale Yeast http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/vermont-ale

According to the site, vial contains 80B cells. I had it shipped from CA to NJ, and the best buy date is April 2015, so it's safe to assume the yeast is fresh. I've been using 12/15 as the production date...Is that a safe date? Too fresh? (Site says manufacture date is 4 months before best buy date.)

Yeastcalc.com says I need 408B cells
Brewersfriend says I need 500+ B cells
MrMalty says I need 305B cells

I shake the starter from time to time. Today, I pitched a vial into a 2L starter (1.040), and the plan was to decant, then step up with another 3L Tuesday, crash it, decant for pitching on Thursday (New Years Day)

Bottom line:

Is my thinking/process sound?
How many cells do I really need?
How much is too much yeast?

I've read it better to slightly under than over...So what's the deal?

Thanks!

 

[LLBeanJ]

I don't know anything about that yeast, but what you've described for cell count and viability sounds perfectly reasonable, so let's go with that.

As far as cells needed, I input the OG and 6g batch size into all three calculators. Yeastcalc and BF both came up with 306B and mrmalty came up with 305B. If you do the starter plan you described, you'll be overpitching by quite a bit. Since you've already started the first step of 2L, I'd go ahead and run that out and then do another 2L once you've cold crashed and decanted, which will net 391B cells. Then, when it's all said and done, you can transfer 25% of the total volume (approx. 100B cells) to a sanitized container and put it in the fridge for another starter later on down the road. Or, if you don't want to mess with that you could just pitch it all, since the overpitch is only ~30% over, so not a big deal.

 

[MrEggSandwich]

I've been using "high gravity" ale under target pitch rate. Too much?

 

[LLBeanJ]

Oh, okay, that makes sense. You can go with the higher rates if you want and I'm sure it will be fine. I have always used the standard .75 ale/1.5 lager pitch rates for all brews, regardless of gravity (up to 1.090, anyway) and have not had any issues with off flavors or FG, but I've always made starters, so I'm sure that helps. The only time I've altered pitch rates was to go lower for Belgians/Hefe's in order to coax more character from the yeast. At 1.074, I'm sure you'll be fine with the standard .75 pitch rate, but I don't think there would be any harm in pitching more.

 

[MrEggSandwich]

So let's go with 306B....Is there anything wrong with me doing a smaller (1L) as the 2nd step?

I know it's probably not optimal, but just want to pitch the correct amount.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Go with 1.2L for the 2nd step and that should get you to around 310B. The growth rate will be minimal, but it should be okay.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with going 2L on the 2nd step and saving off some of that healthy, clean yeast for another brew/starter. I do it with every starter I make.

 

[Rcbandl]

Dont worry about overpitching until you get to more than double the reccomended pitch rate. The real evil is under pitching.

 

[MrEggSandwich]

So what is the benefit of pitching at 1.0 VS .75?

What will be the difference in my final product?