42 gallons yeast starter... advices please...

Hey all...
Me and my friends are going to make a 160 liters batch of pilsner to try out our newly tweaked 200L refrigerated conical fermentor. I know it´s crazy but we are doing it anyway...
We are trying to figure out how much of a starter we'll need to make, taking in consideration that we are brewing a 1.047 OG pilsner and are going to use only dry yeast.
We need some advice on making it efficiently cost-effective. Meaning we want to use as little dry yeast packages as possible and work out the step starters... I guess...
I understand that we should pitch as closer to the needed amount of cells as possible so not to get esters right?
anyway.... I might be confused now but need your help guys... cheers...

 

What exactly are you going to make your starter in haha? Mr. Malty says 10 packets of dry yeast into about 28L water should do the trick. You might be able to get away with doing it in a corny keg and pitching straight out of that.

 

If we use 10 packets of yeast it would be pricier than whole batch itself. We were thinking scaling up the starters...

 

oh and we have the 20 l buckets and 60 l containers for it...

 

Wouldnt a 20L starter be proportional to pitching a vial in a 5 gallon batch?

 

Why not take the yeast from a couple of 5 gallon batches of beer, instead of doing some elaborate starter?

Heck, you might even consider packaging and drinking that beer!

 

As an aside, why is it crazy to make a 160L batch in a 200L conical? I mean, isn't that why you built such a large fermenter in the first place?....to, you know, fill it up?

I hope you didn't built that puppy and just to run 40L batches through it....

 

Well what kind of yeast are you going to use? 10 packets of dry would be pretty cheap but I can see why you'd want to build a few packets/vials of liquid yeast up. Do you have an aeration device? You could build it up much faster that way.

 

@broadbill... of course we were planning to make big batches like that... but I dont know it sounds kinda really big to me now... hehe...
@a6ladd... we havent decided which yeast yet... but we are in Brazil and this stuff dont come out cheap here... hehe I was thinking the shaking aeration type hehehe

 

Whatever you do, get ready to make batch #2 once you package this one so you dont have to buy yeast for the second go around.

Cheers
Jay

 

Yes do EXACTLY what Jay said. Id give Saflager W-34/70 a try, itll be cheap and effective for the first run. Cheers!

 

Why not do a couple of 5 or 10 gallon batches as "starters"

 

@ Jaybird... we certainly will... hehe

 

I was thinking a 5 gallon batch for starter and pitch... but wasnt certain it would be enough...

 

ok... an idea... what if I make a 20L starter...2 days before brewing... then I brew the 160 lot put 120 into the big fermentor to sit and wait while a take 40L of the wort to work as a second step of the starter for a couple of days and then pitch everything in the big fermentor?

 

4L Starter

20L in carboy

60L in conical

160L in conical

 

I know this isn't the same, but we did a 60 gallon lambic and 4 days before brewing the 60 gallons, I did a simple 5 gallon batch, pitched 1 vial of ECY01, then used the entire 5 gallon carboy as the starter for the 60 gallons (Ah, run on sentences).

The barrel started fermenting in less than 24 hours. Comprende?

 

You could probably get your cell count in 3 big steps.

1 - pitch 1 satchet of rehydratated dry yeast into a 3 liter starter on a stir plate.

2 - decant, and dump that slurry into a 6 liter starter.

3 - decant, and dump this slurry into a 12 liter starter.

Once that ferments out you should be pretty darn close to your recommended pitch rate.

Check out this starter calc YeastCalc.


Enter your wort parameters up top.

Input '200' into your initial cell count, (this is approximately how many cells are in an 11.5g sachet of dry yeast.)

Choose 'stir plate' as the method of aeration for all your steps. (I'm assuming you have a stir plate.)

Then play with the starter volumes until you come up with something workable for your equipment set-up.

Have fun with your brew, sounds awesome.

 

Thanks everyone for the advices...
@Sulli is it true that a sachet of dry yeast has 200 billion viable cells? I've read many times that's got something between 60 and 80 only...

 

From what I have read it is assumed by most that there are 20 billion viable yeast cells per gram of dried yeast.

 

Safale states in their spec sheet that there are 6 x 10^9/gram (6 billion cells/gram) viable cells at packaging.

6,000,000,000 x 11.5g = 69 billion cells per satchet.

But then I've been shown this quote from the Mr. Malty website.

"Some exciting work has been done on dry yeast lately. Reports are coming in of better quality, cleaner dry yeast. Personally, I really prefer the liquid yeasts, but the lure of dry yeast is strong. The biggest benefit is that it is cheap and does not require a starter. In fact, with most dry yeasts, placing them in a starter would just deplete the reserves that the yeast manufacturer worked so hard to build into the yeast. Most dry yeast has an average cell density of 20 billion cells per gram. You would need about 9.5 grams of dry yeast if you were pitching into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts. (Recently there have been other numbers mentioned for cells/gram of dry yeast and folks have asked me why I believe there are 20 billion cells. I've actually done cell counts on dry yeast and they're always 20 billion per gram +/- less than a billion. Dr. Clayton Cone has also stated that there are 20 billion per gram, and other folks I trust tell me that 20 billion is correct. Until I see something different, practical experience tells me this number is correct.) For dry yeasts, just do a proper rehydration in tap water, do not do a starter." ​

Seems a little strange that the manufacturer would publish inaccurate information on their product, but I've not seen any information refuting what Jamil has stated either.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me has some better answers.