Need advice on brewing my first big beer, a Baltic porter

[Ali01]

I'm gonna try making high gravity beer
I've found a recipe
The og is 1.089
I have a 12L carboy and that's the biggest carboy I can fit inside my mini fridge for temp control
So my batch volume will be 8L
How much yeast should I pitch for an 8L wort with this high of a gravity?
I have a used and sealed packet of S04 in the fridge, 8 grams
Will that be enough? Should I make a starter two days before pitching? My plan is to rehydrate the yeast in some sterilized water and add it to the starter
And finally, how long does it take to carbonate in a bottle? Will it carbonate without an issue?

 

[mac_1103]

If that packet was well sealed before refrigerating it should be more than enough for direct pitching into a batch that size even at that OG. Making a starter will give you confirmation of the viability of the yeast, however, so that might be a good idea if you would be stuck without anything else to pitch if it didn't take off in the wort.

I'm guessing that your recipe will finish around 1.020 with S-04. That would be a bit over 9% ABV. Fermentis says that S-04 has an alcohol tolerance of 9-11%, so it might be a close call on bottle conditioning without adding a bottling yeast. I've never used S-04 for anything over about 8.5% so I don't really know for sure.

Many posters here have reported that bigger beers take a little longer to carbonate. Personally, I have never noticed this because I always wait longer anyway since bigger beers also tend to benefit from a bit of aging.