Do I REALLY need to pay attention to pitch rates???

So I've been brewing beer for about a year and a half now, and I have NEVER pitched more than one smack pack of Wyeast or more than one vial of White Lab's yeast in my wort, regardless of the OG. Nor have I ever made a starter. Most of my beer has turned out pretty damn awesome, so I find myself wondering about all the fervor around pitch rates. Can someone enlighten me to how and why it would substantially help my beer get even better if I followed a pitch rate calculator (which sometimes suggests that I use four friggin' smack packs for my IIPAs)? Also, what's the different between a "normal" and a "high" pitching rate and what will it do for the beer?

 

I noticed that smack packs were generally good. However any time I used a white labs vial my beer would under attenuate. Have you gotten a well attenuated high gravity beer with an unstarted white labs vial?

 

Generally a lower pitch is associated with more ester production and can also attribute more off flavors. A higher pitch will give you a cleaner yeast flavor, and will ferment faster. Trappist breweries actually under pitch on purpose to get those extra esters.
If you are brewing low gravity 5 gallon batches, you are probably doing alright with just one vial, but if you are brewing something like an IIPA, you are severely underpitching and I would recommend a half gallon starter.

 

I agree with the OP. I just bottled my DFH 90' clone; OG 1.09; FG 1.015 and all I used was one single smackpack.

Maybe my palate is still "unrefined" enough to taste any off esters, but to me, my FG sample just tasted like uncarbonated awesomness.

That being said, I've brewed other IIPAs with one unrehydrated pack of US05 and also never had a problem.

However, I have never used a white labs vial. Maybe they are designed to be used for a starter, while smackpacks and dry are designed to be used as is?

 

Pitch rates are well studied and understood in regards to attenuation and taste testing.

 

Let's put it a different way, "My beer tastes good doing it this way, so why make better beer?" For quite a while everyone told me that proper pitch rate and controlled fermentation temperatures would make better beer, but "Who needs that? My beer tastes great." Then I put in the effort of making starters and controlling temps. I would never go back to drinking what I was making before. Can you insist on using a single smack pack or vial? Sure. It's your beer. But will you make lower quality beer that way? Every time.

 

This hits the nail on the head. Proper. pitch rates and temp control takes a good beer into great beer range.

 

Good point.

 

Try and clone one of you're favourite commercial american IPA's. Do a low pitch and test yours side by side with the commercial one. If your as good then your a better brewer than most and you can bin the starters

 

There's a certain competitiveness and perhaps even a shade of snobbery about making "great" beer in the homebrew world. It’s logical to say "My beer tastes good doing it this way, so why make better beer?" but I think it's also just as fair to say that if you're happy with what you're brewing, then keep brewing it.

I feel like it’s similar to what’s happened in the culinary world where everyone has this need to be a competitive world-class TV chef and everyone has forgotten and discounted the humble cook. When a world class chef copies the humble cook’s lack of perfect technique, we laud them as being “rustic” instead of sloppy since it’s done with deliberation.

Maybe we should just rebrand those homebrewed beers with excess esters, slight under attenuation and occasional off flavor as “Rustic Homebrew”. (whoops, maybe that’s just farmhouse)

If you’re not aiming to turn pro and you’re not entering any contests then you are the only judge you need to satisfy. If you want a dose of impartial reality about your beers, enter a contest or two and see where your problems might be. My confidence is high, but my palate sucks so I entered few contests and found that my “great beers” rated high good and my “average beers” also rated high good. Shows me that there’s work to be done and fermentation is my final frontier.

Chances are that you’re not making great beer. I’m not either, so we can be pals.

 

My opinion is the same as the OP... If it is good beer, why change it. The only thing I can say is that proper pitching can result in better consistency from batch to batch. The more that you eliminate uncontrolled variables in your process, the more consistent your beers will taste.

At the end of the day, brewing good beer is all that betters to me :-D

 

Why would it be necessary to pitch more for an ipa?

 

Nevermind, just saw the II for double IPA

 

IIP nevermind. Bit early to be typing

 

While I agree to a point, it is true that the master chef will often emulate simpler rustic cooking, but he still masters the more advanced techniques of cooking, so when he doesn't use a technique he has a good reason. A free-form jazz musician does not simply discard music theory, because his music sounds fine without it. He may lay those restrictions aside, but to make the best music he still masters them. A poet who doesn't feel bound to standards of poetic form, still learns and masters those forms so when he deviates from them it is for a purpose. A brewer who masters the techniques of brewing and then chooses to lay some of those techniques aside is an artist who has a specific reason for using the tools at his command. Is this anywhere close to the one who says, "My beer is fine so why try harder?" While I am all for someone saying this of their own beer, the problem is that when you post such things on a place like HBT (which you are free to do) then you actually cause problems for those who are trying to learn good brewing. "This guy doesn't bother with building a starter, but simply pitches low, so why should I?" For that reason, others must step in and point out that while your choice is your choice and the beer may taste good, this is not good practice and not the practice of someone who wants to make the best beer.

What kind of brewer do you want to be? I don't care about contests and don't care about being better than everyone else. I shoot to be better today than I was yesterday--I compete with myself. I also want to be proud of my beer when presenting some to a friend.

Do an experiment. Make two identical 5 gallon batches. In one batch pitch a single vial of yeast. For the other build an appropriate sized starter (take the time to calculate it). Ferment them out the same way and see what happens. Then decide if you need to use starters. Until you do this, you are only guessing. By the way, you may want to check out the book Yeast, by Chris White--of White labs.

 

I get what ur asking but for me, i've read enough (here and elsewhere) about pitching properly and don't think it hurts to use a stir plate or rehydrate the yeast like the package might say. Maybe it does make the difference between good beer and great beer. Im not gonna say my palette is refined enough to tell the difference for each style, but its just my own opinion that if i can do something to make my beer better, im gonna do it. If that involves buying another vial for 6-8 bucks, or getting some DME and making a starter, the investment for me is justified. it can't hurt the batch in the long run so spending a few more bucks in my mind makes it worth it. But then again thats why i'd rather spend 5 bucks on one pint of Murphys instead of 1.75 for a pint of Miller Lite like my friends drink.

 

This, because i love adding more and more gadgetry to my brewing system...

 

In the end, all that matters is what hits the glass.

 

As others have stated, you can make your beer however you please. In the 80s, my father-in-law was making 5 gallon batches of "beer" with a 3lb can of hopped LME, 5lbs of table sugar, and a package of dry bakers yeast. He thought it was good...

 

Couldn't have put it better myself!

I don't think anyone here is saying you have to do it one way, or being snobby about their opinion. Nor are we saying your beer isn't good because you're typically using roughly 100 billion cells. But, talk to any professional brewer and it's just a fact that the fermentation is the most important part of the process. A huge part of that is the pitch rate and the environment in which yeast does it's job.

Brew the same recipe on the same date (or split a batch into two carboys) and change no other variable than the pitch rate. There is going to be a difference. Whether or not it's appropriate for that recipe is another question.

 

This is still an evolving area in homebrewing. As this thread shows, theres a dearth of well-done testing showing taste improvement from "properly" pitched homebrewed beers. We know for sure that high pitch rates can help attenuate high-grav beer and will dramatically reduce fermentation times (especially lagers). That's good enough for me. There are *probably* benefits in taste based on the fact that commercial brewers do it, but I'm just taking that on faith until we know more.

 

My personal practice with yeast, is that with every beer which uses a smack pack or vial of liquid yeast, I calculate the appropriate starter size and pitch that. If I am in a hurry and just get the itch to brew something that day, without time to build a starter (which does happen), then I make something that I can use dry yeast for and simply calculate how many packets to pitch. This however, is new. I just recently started experimenting with dry yeasts, having always used liquid before. I really like US-05, so far, and because of the type of beers I am working on right now--American "lawnmower" beers being stockpiled for our very long and hellish summer--I may not make a starter for several months. However, once fall comes and the South Texas temps drop back down, I'll start making some big Scotch Ales and Stouts and you can bet the stir plate will be busy.

 

Is BeerSmith accurate? Maybe it's just me misunderstanding the software, but it seems like every time it tells me I need multiple dry packets or multiple vials of liquid, even with an 800Ml starter. I mean, if that's the case, I'll order multiples.

 

No, you never need to use multiple packets of liquid yeast; just make a larger starter. I refuse to buy multiple $6 yeast packs out of principle, so I just make bigger starters. Sometimes two stage starters, like 1.5L then 3L.

People don't usually make starters with dry yeast, so yes, use multiple packs of dry yeast when needed.

 

So...what I really need to do is buy a 2L erlenmeyer? I can do that...

 

Make sure the packaged on date is correct in beersmith. be default mine keeps going back to 2011, making viability in the low single digits. I also like to use MrMalty too, ive used that alot more then the beersmith calculator.

 

That isn't always the case either though. Pick up Palmers How To Brew (Print copy, not the online edition), theres a chart there that shows how many packets and how many liters of starter u should use. Granted its not set in stone but is a guide to point u in the correction direction.

There are also a few threads on here about why u should use multiple vials/smack packs instead of just one with a huge amount of DME starter.

 

What about dry yeast? If BeerSmith/MrMalty/etc. recommend more than one packet, do you buy multiple packets or make a starter? For some reason I remember reading that starters are only for liquid yeast, but I've never heard why.

 

I don't have much experience (brewed my third beer yesterday) but I have a strong microbiology background. To achieve maximum production of a microorganism, let's choose E.coli for now, you would start with picking a single colony from a plate. You inoculate a 5mL culture first, incubate overnight and use 1mL or so from that to inoculate a larger volume (200-1000 mL). Depending on what you need you will either incubate overnight again to get the maximum yield of organisms or you stop earlier when they are in the log-phase if you want them to be most active.

When you translate this to a yeast starter you will find that a smack-pack recommends a 3-6 hour incubation after smacking. This will help get the yeast into the early log-phase. Very nice. However, if you make a starter from this you will have more yeast cells that are actively reproducing in the log-phase, thus reducing the lag-phase.

Not sure if that is off-topic but here's what I have done with the two last yeast strains (liquid). I want to freeze a large stock of each strain so I don't have to buy them over and over again. You will need to start 2 days ahead of brewday. Since I use two cultures (one for freezing and one for pitching) I color-coded them.

1. On day -2 before brewday prepare 1.5L of wort from DME (I use ~1 cup per liter). Boil for 15-20 min and add yeast nutrients if desired (~0.5g).
2. If you have a smack pack, smack it and let it incubate. If it's a liquid culture just shake it.
3. Add yeast culture to wort.
4. Stir vigorously overnight. This culture will be used for freezing and inoculation of the actual starter for brewday.
5. On day -1 prepare another 1L or so of wort for the actual pitching starter.
6. Transfer ~100mL of the first culture to the new wort and stir vigorously overnight.Place the first culture aside or on another stir plate if available.
7. On brewday place the second starter in the fridge ~3-4h before pitching. This will allow the yeast to settle and you can decant the spent wort more easily. Make sure to keep ~500mL of the wort from the kettle for the starter! Also, you can place the first culture back on the stir plate.
8. Prepare the freezing medium for the yeast (based on this thread): 10% glycerol and I use DME again.
9. Carefully decant the spent wort and add the freezing medium to the pellet. I use the stirrer to resuspend the cells nicely.
10. Aliquot the cells into as many vials as you need to. I never count the cells since I don't have the right equipment at home but it would be helpful to do.
11. With about 1h or so left before pitching decant the wort from the culture and add the [cooled] wort from the kettle. Stir vigorously until pitching.
12. Pitch and watch the air lock bubble after just a few hours.

As you can see, I incubate the culture for freezing much longer since I want as much yeast as possible because it will be frozen and its state before freezing doesn't need to be in log-phase. For the pitching starter, however, I want the most active yeast, hence I incubate shorter.

When I did this yesterday my air lock was bubbling after 3 or 4 hours at 65 °F. I do not count my cells or calculate anything because I don't have a cell count but if I did have the equipment I'd do it! In other words: Even if you don't have the correct number I'd highly advise to make a starter culture so your fermentation will have a minimized lag-phase. I will find out how well my frozen cultures are doing but even if survival is low I just give them more time to recover.

 

if its starting fast and not throwing off flavors you ARE at a proper pitching rate.

Even if all the caculators are in competition to see who can say you need the most yeast, and in doing so, getting the most hits and fans.

 

You can always step up a starter instead of pitching multiple packs.

 

No. You don't REALLY have to pay attention to pitching rates. It's your beer and you can make it however you like. I have found that I like my beer better now that I do really pay attention to pitching rates, O2, and fermentation temperature control, but that's me and my beer. It cant hurt to try it and then decide if you think it is worth it for your beer.

 

If Brewsmith recommends multiple packets of dry yeast, then I pitch multiple packets of dry yeast--they cheap in comparison to liquid. As for the recommended starter sizes for liquid yeast, notice that Brewsmith gives you the size starter you need to build, or the number of multiple packets you will need if you don't build a starter. Also, notice there is a setting for whether you use a stir plate or not because this greatly effects the amount of yeast. Finally, as was posted before, make sure and change the package date for your yeast in the Brewsmith calculator--it does, irritatingly, default to 2011.

 

Yes but stepping it up in parts is different then dumping one pack into a 4L starter. Which will take more time and more DME.

take not of this thread...
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/stepping-up-yeast-starter-326077/

and more particularly, this link in that thread...
http://billybrew.com/stepping-up-a-yeast-starter

In that thread, read the third post by diS and in the second thread take notice to the chart. One pack pitched into a 1L starter will give u roughly 150 billion cells, but pitching one pack into a 7L starter will give you roughly 350 billion. Thats roughly 2.33 X's increase in the amount of cells, not 7X's like one would expect.

 

You don't need any DME to make a starter. You just need wort. Stepping up does require more time, but if are in a hurry why bother with a starter at all? Just pitch a whole bunch of packs of yeast.

 

All that is true, but how does it support your assertion that 2 smack packs with one starter is somehow better than one pack with a two-stage starter? (in order to arrive at the same number of yeast cells.)

 

It doesn't on a smaller scale because u can get to the same point with just adding some more DME and one step (if u have the time). But when you get into RIS or IIPA's with an OG of 1.090, or a lager with a mid sized OG but with a large 10-15+ gallon batch, do u really wanna have to use a monster flask and a 6 step, week and a half long build up process for your starter with just one pack?

 

When I said one smack pack suffices (with a 1- or 2-stage starter), I was assuming of course just 5 gallon batches. It goes without saying that such a strategy fails for 10-15+ gal batches of high-grav beer, because like you said logistically it doesn't work well.

 

And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that someone should or should not worry about fermentation temperatures and pitching rates, I'm just suggesting that if someone is truly satisfied with the beer that they're making then that might be good be enough for them at a given point in time (in the RDWHAH tradition). I also believe that if a homebrewer is satisfied with what they're doing today, they will likely grow to be unsatisfied with the same in the future and start seeking out possible improvements.

For me personally, I'm interested in the long-term growth of incremental improvements.