Building WYEAST for brewing 35 gallons

[Elkaybay]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a 55 gallon electric brewery and would like to continue brewing high gravity Belgians with it.
I often use WYEAST 3787 for my beers (around 1080 OG).

According to MrMalty, making a 3 liter starter, then stepping up to 5-6 gallon will create enough yeast for brewing a 35 gallon 1080 OG batch.
That's all assuming a stir plate is used, even on the 5 gallon starter.
I found a stir plate that can hold an 8 gallon carboy, as well as magnetic stirbars 2 inches long.

Would you go this way too? Using DME?

Brewing a 5 gallon light beer (1040 OG) and harvesting the cake will not give a sufficient cell count.

Thanks for your help!

 

[kombat]

Is this for a commercial nanobrewery? That's an awful lot of high-gravity beer for personal use. You'll hit your federal annual limit after just 4 batches.

If it were me, I'd just brew a regular 10 gallon batch of beer (no stir plate), then repitch the entire yeast cake into the 55 gallon batch. Make sure you oxygenate with pure oxygen for a batch that large and with such a high starting gravity.

 

[broadbill]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a 55 gallon electric brewery and would like to continue brewing high gravity Belgians with it.
I often use WYEAST 3787 for my beers (around 1080 OG).

According to MrMalty, making a 3 liter starter, then stepping up to 5-6 gallon will create enough yeast for brewing a 35 gallon 1080 OG batch.
That's all assuming a stir plate is used, even on the 5 gallon starter.
I found a stir plate that can hold an 8 gallon carboy, as well as magnetic stirbars 2 inches long.

Would you go this way too? Using DME?

Brewing a 5 gallon light beer (1040 OG) and harvesting the cake will not give a sufficient cell count.

Thanks for your help!

I wouldn't take those calculators as gospel, just a recommendation. To start out why don't you make 10 gallons of blonde to get the initial pitch rate for the large batc? Then start pulling off yeast from the conicals to inoculate subsequent batches.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Use grain to make your starter wort. It will be much cheaper than buying DME and you can keep it canned or kegged without CO2

 

[Elkaybay]

Thanks for the tips!
Yes this project will be for brewing for commercial purposes: serving craft beer in my new restaurant.

For some reason, DME is extremely cheap here (I'm based in China), so I'm still tempted to use it.