Making Lord Fatbottom soon...(Northern Brewer's recipe). This is a huge barley wine with a starting gravity of 1.123. After plugging in the numbers on mr. malty's pitching rate calculator, it is stating I need a starter of 10.71 quarts. Over two and a half gallons??? That can't be right. All I have is one pack of Wyeast 1056. Even by increasing it to 2 packs, I still says I need over a gallon starter. Am I using this calc. right? If so, how do I go about making this starter...I've only done small starters in the past and never "ramped up" any of them. My usual technique is .5 cup DME to 1.5 cup water boiled, cooled, and poured in a 500 ml flask w/ the yeast strain. Occasionally swirled for a few days until it looks like krausen is the highest, then brew batch and pitch. Any help with this one??? If so, please be specifec as there is a lot of money in malt and hops at stake here & I don't want to screw it up. Thanks in advance to all!
Help! Starter for Lord Fatbottom...
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ChrisKennedy
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Get two 1 gallon jugs, two packs of yeast, make 3qt starters for each jug, pitch a pack into each, and you will be good to go.
Pitching rates aren't linear, so you need more than twice the yeast for a 1.120 beer than you do for a 1.060 beer.
Pint starters can also be more harm than good. The yeast do not have enough sugars/nutrients to rebuild their glycogen reserves after they work through that yeast, so your yeast will be less viable after a pint starter than they were before you pitched them in the starter. There is also not enough sugar to reproduce, so really, a pint starter (unless used to simply wake up the yeast the morning of a brew) does more harm than good.
Pitching rates aren't linear, so you need more than twice the yeast for a 1.120 beer than you do for a 1.060 beer.
Pint starters can also be more harm than good. The yeast do not have enough sugars/nutrients to rebuild their glycogen reserves after they work through that yeast, so your yeast will be less viable after a pint starter than they were before you pitched them in the starter. There is also not enough sugar to reproduce, so really, a pint starter (unless used to simply wake up the yeast the morning of a brew) does more harm than good.
ChrisKennedy
Well-Known Member
If you have enough time, just let the starters ferment ALL the way out, and then cold crash them in the fridge. All the yeast will fall to the bottom, then just decant the majority of the starters, swirl the rest, and pitch it into your wort.
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What kind of aeration system are you using? I don't mean to be a party pooper, but to make this ride easy, you need to have good brewing techniques throughout.
Lame story: When I started brewing, I tried to stretch myself and make beers that were beyond my abilities. I thought it would prove something to myself about my brewing ability.
Instead, all it did was teach me why people recommend you brew less difficult batches. I never had a bad batch, but I had batches that disappointed me because they showed the same problems that the books and people predicted I would have.
Nobody will be hurt/maimed/injured by your beer so on the one hand it doesn't matter one bit. On the other hand, you're in for a challenging ferment and if you want your 6+ months(?) of waiting to be worthwhile, it is wise to maximize every aspect of your brewing process.
By chance, is this a PM or Extract batch? If so, I suggest holding maybe half the fermentables back until you get a good active fermentation. In that way, you can treat half your carboy as a starter....
Lame story: When I started brewing, I tried to stretch myself and make beers that were beyond my abilities. I thought it would prove something to myself about my brewing ability.
Instead, all it did was teach me why people recommend you brew less difficult batches. I never had a bad batch, but I had batches that disappointed me because they showed the same problems that the books and people predicted I would have.Nobody will be hurt/maimed/injured by your beer so on the one hand it doesn't matter one bit. On the other hand, you're in for a challenging ferment and if you want your 6+ months(?) of waiting to be worthwhile, it is wise to maximize every aspect of your brewing process.
By chance, is this a PM or Extract batch? If so, I suggest holding maybe half the fermentables back until you get a good active fermentation. In that way, you can treat half your carboy as a starter....
Or, you could use that yeast to make a smaller beer first. Then pitch this Barley Wine directly on to the yeast cake. Northern Brew suggests pitching on a cake from an Extra Pale Ale. With the cost of that kit I would want to make sure I didn't screw it up
OK. I think I'm going to go the route of making an IPA and the pitch on to the yeast cake, like NB reccomends as opposed to making two starters. Question: Does it have to be a 5 gallon batch? I like to make smaller batches of sometimes just a gallon to play around with recipes. As long as I use the full packet of Wyeast, will this small cake (1 gallon) be enough for fermentation? or would I need a full 5 gallon batch cake?...or mabe even pitch an extra packet of Wyeast along with the 1 gallon cake?
OK, so I ended up taking NB's recommendaton and just made a Chinook IPA yesterday, so in about 1 month when I'm ready to bottle, I should have a good yeast cake in the secondary for the Fatbottom. I was thinking what better Chinook IPA recipe to brew than Arrogant Bastard. Actually, it will be in the style of Arrogant Bastard. I took a recipe found here and played around w/ the malt and hop additions. Wanted a hoppier Bastard, so I added a 1 oz flavor addition. Might even dry hop it w/ more chinook in the secondary then let this sit in the bottle for 8+ months. Has anyone else aged their Bastard? Or even oaked it? Just curious.
