Liquid yeast smack pack for 3.5 gal. batch - starter?

[Mothman]

I'm starting to think about my next brew, and I'm leaning toward Yoopers Oatmeal Stout.

It calls for Wyeast 1335, which will be my first time using liquid yeast.

I scale my batches to 3.5 gallons, and I'm wondering, given the smaller batch size, is it still good practice to make a starter? Or will the yeast count be sufficient straight from the smack pack?

 

[Upthewazzu]

Depends, use an online yeast calculator to find out!

 

[Weezy]

It'll be fine.

 

[flars]

Just for the heck of it plug your numbers into this pitch rate/starter calculator. Will help judge whether there is risk or no risk going without a starter.
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

 

[user 246304]

I'm starting to think about my next brew, and I'm leaning toward Yoopers Oatmeal Stout.

It calls for Wyeast 1335, which will be my first time using liquid yeast.

I scale my batches to 3.5 gallons, and I'm wondering, given the smaller batch size, is it still good practice to make a starter? Or will the yeast count be sufficient straight from the smack pack?

You've got about 100 billion cells in your smack pack. Depending on ester and other "growth" flavors you would like in your beer, the calculator flars gives is great - just plug it in. The "standard" pitching rate for ales that you see there - literally .75 millions cells per ml of wort per deg. Plato - is a good benchmark.

But, you can go a bit lower to encourage esters development; you risk higher lag time and possible infection. It's common for breweries to tweak their ale pitching rates a bit lower than the "standard," for just this reason - a fine tuning of ester content.

A bit higher, and you "clean" up your beer's yeast taste contribution. Here, relatively speaking, esters development is less, though fusel alcohols are encouraged, particularly if your ferment runs to the hotter side of its range. If significantly overpitched, not only are these things more pronounced, but you can end up with flavors contributed by autolysis - the breakdown of yeast tissue, causing brothy, meaty flavor.

Where I worked, both were done, for their respective purposes. Ales were often underpitched, lagers were often overpitched to tame sulfur pickup and expression, etc.

To keep it simple, so long as you're not brewing a high-gravity brew, you're fine with just the smack pack, presuming it's fresh. "Fresh" is really important, because viability can drop off considerably for aged or improperly stored smack packs. In which case, you'd have to either lower your viability input and increase the amount you'd need, or find some fresh yeast and go ahead.

 

[Leezer]

A note on the yeast, I use Wyeast 1450 for that recipe instead since somewhere in the thread it was found to be a good one to go with. I really like it with the 1450 but I have to admit I never tried it with the 1335. Just thought I'd mention it since it's a long thread and I don't know exactly where that alternative came up.

 

[user 246304]

On specific yeasts, I'd recommend taking a look at Wyeast's London III(among the "fitting" beers they recommend, is your Oatmeal Stout), and White Labs's WLPOO2. Though they indicate it as an ESB yeast, it flocs well and leaves some residual sweetness I enjoy in an Oatmeal Stout. Your call, of course.

I am drawn to Yorkshire and once I get my new brewery up and running, I'll be working with Wyeast's West Yorkshire yeast, No. 1469.

 

[Mothman]

Thanks everyone! Seems to me I'd probably be ok without a starter... a tad low on yeast, but likely not brew-breaking... but I think I'll do one anyways, if for no other reason than to get some experience doing it.

Off to search HBT on how to make a starter.

 

[cubalz]

It really depends on the original gravity. If you are doing a 3.5 gallon batch with an OG of 1.050 or less, you do not need to worry about a starter.