How long will it take for a two step starter?

Well, I over estimated the size of my vessel for my yeast starter and will need to do two 1.5L starters. My brew day is sunday and I haven't started my starter. How long will it be to make my first starter, chill, decant, then pitch my second step? Hoping to pitch the yeast to fermenter sunday night.

 

Usually about 24 hours per step if you rush. You can do it by Sunday

 

you'll need 3 x 24 hours: 24 hr for starter #1 to run its course, 24 hours to cold-crash in fridge and get yeast to floc out, then a third 24 hours for starter #2. if you want to cold-crash that, add a 4th 24 hours. you can skip that last one if you're willing to pitch all of starter #2.

there are some variables in the above. if you use a highly focculent yeast you might not need 24 hours to cold-crash. if you use a yeast with low flocculation, it could take much longer. you definitely need to cold-crash and decant between starters, since you don't have a large enough starter vessel to pitch all of starter #1 into starter #2.

can you get a larger vessel for starter #2? 1-gallon jugs can be used, depending on their bottoms and whether or not you're using a stir-plate.

 

The yeast is pacman. A single stage starter puts me 50billion cells short, if I do a 2nd starter it puts me somewhere around 100billion over required.

Its an IPA (1.070) that 'needs' 254billion.. 1 starter puts me at 200billion. A second step puts me at 334billion

Will being 50bil short be that bad??

And yes I'm using a stir plate

 

Just use two vessles - sterilized mason jars work well. Pitch yeast in the first one and let it go. When its done give it a good mix, pitch about 1/8 of it into your second vessle and put the first one in the fridge to crash it. The second one should be done Sunday morning and you can either pitch it as is or crash it while you brew. Just pitch em both when the time comes.

 

being 20% isn't ideal, but chances are the yeast will pull through. plus, pacman is quite a beast. is there any way of boosting your first step in quantity just a bit? 1.7 liters instead of 1.5? that would solve the problem, most likely.

 

I pushed the limit with what would fit. With dme and yeast I'm right at 2l. I was deff over 1.5l in water. 6.3oz in DME and yeast puts me right around 2l. I'm hoping this is good enough for only 1 step.

 

Would be tough to do two steps conventionally by Sunday. Ladd's answer was actually pretty creative, I'd go with that. Maybe do a 2 L starter, then put 0.5 Liters of that into another starter tomorrow and cold crash the original. You'll be good.

If it were me I'd probably do two steps conventional and brew next week... But I'm anal

 

I find it best to plan your starters (two or three steps) to start about a week before you're planned brew day. For older yeast packs, the first step can take longer, which I take into account when planning. My typical schedule is
Starter 1: 24-48 hours
Cold crash 1: 18-24 hours
Starter 2: 18-24 hours
Cold crash 2: 24 hours
[as needed]
Starter 3: 18-24 hours
cold crash 3: 24+ hours

I'm doing two starter steps for next weekend's brew day. The yeast is almost two months old. So, I'll plan up to 48 hours for the first starter on stirplate. Which means I'll make the first starter at least 5 days before the brew day (Saturday). Which puts it at either Sunday or Monday.

Next time, plan a bit better for your starter. Especially if you are also restricted by your flask size. I use my 3L flask most often, but sometimes use the 2L flask. I've yet to use my 5L flask due to it not really fitting in my fridge without removing a shelf completely.

 

Things were planned out until I realized my vessel was a liter short than I thought.. that's another story. I was going to do a single starter and pitch it all which would have been fine in my time frame. Brewing next week isn't a possibility. This will most likely the last brew til after Christmas.. I work retail and have virtually no free time.

 

can you use a different starter vessel? maybe a growler or a 1-liter jug?

 

I haven't been able to locate a bigger vessel. I've since pitched the yeast and it had virtually no lag time, maybe an hour.

Hopefully I can better plan my starters now that I know my limitations. First run out and all in all I'm happy with it. Thanks for the input.