Pitch Rate of 12-14? Help!

[Nathan Hassey]

I purchased a book last week called "The Craft of Stone Brewing Co." It is a very good book with a lot of their recipes, which is cool if you like their beers. The question I have is this. In their recipes, they say the pitch rate for a particular beer is 12-14...That's all it says. It doesn't say per ml, or anything like that. Does anyone know what a pitch rate of "12-14" actually means? When I look at Beersmith, the pitch rate options go up to 2 which is a High gravity Lager. I have made many beers just using Beersmith's yeast starter calculator and never had any issues. But what are they talking about with 12-14? If it is what I think, that's a 5g starter for a 5g batch. That cant be right. What am I missing here?

 

[SanPancho]

I think its usually Xmillion cells per degree plato per liter or something like that.

Maybe check the back for an index, addendum, glossary, etc?

Or just email them.

 

[Nathan Hassey]

Yea thats what im used to seeing. But 12/ml/plato is over 3 trillion cells for a 5g batch...ill keep looking

 

[IslandLizard]

Those pitch rates are million cells per ml.

 

[Nathan Hassey]

So they in fact pitch over 3 trillion cells per 5g batch? How would i do that in beersmith. They only go up to 2m per ml.

 

[IslandLizard]

Does that book contain any pointers on brewing Arrogant Bastard?

 

[Nathan Hassey]

Ok so i figured it out. There are two different pitch rates that seem very similar but are in fact VERY different. There is millions of cells per milliliter, and then there is millions of cells per milliliter per degree plato. I was reading their 12-14 as cells per ml/degree plato. Which it is not. It is 12-14 cells/ml. Which means it is a 1m cell/ml/degree plato. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that Wyeast link. I read it before but didn't understand how they were getting those numbers.

 

[Nathan Hassey]

Does that book contain any pointers on brewing Arrogant Bastard?

No it doesnt. This is what they include.

 

[IslandLizard]

Ok so i figured it out. There are two different pitch rates that seem very similar but are in fact VERY different. There is millions of cells per milliliter, and then there is millions of cells per milliliter per degree plato. I was reading their 12-14 as million cells per ml/degree plato. Which it is not. It is 12-14 million cells/ml. Which means it is a 1m cell/ml/degree plato. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that Wyeast link. I read it before but didn't understand how they were getting those numbers.

million!

I'd use a yeast calculator, such as Homebrew Dad's, using (standard) pitch rates of .75 million cells/ml/degree Plato. For a 5.5 gallon batch of 1.060 (14.75 °Plato) ale that comes out to pitching around 230 billion cells. That's around 11 million cells per ml, and more than twice the amount of cells in a fresh pack of yeast that was manufactured yesterday.

If one were to use the pitching table from Wyeast, 6 million cells/ml is adequate for 1.060 wort, but for a 1.061 wort (only 1.7% higher gravity) suddenly pitch size would double to 12 million cells/ml. That's a very wobbly way of estimating.

 

[IslandLizard]

No it doesnt. This is what they include.
View attachment 596130

Bummer!

 

[Nathan Hassey]

million!

I'd use a yeast calculator, such as Homebrew Dad's, using (standard) pitch rates of .75 million cells/ml/degree Plato. For a 5.5 gallon batch of 1.060 (14.75 °Plato) ale that comes out to pitching around 230 billion cells. That's around 11 million cells per ml, and more than twice the amount of cells in a fresh pack of yeast that was manufactured yesterday.

If one were to use the pitching table from Wyeast, 6 million cells/ml is adequate for 1.060 wort, but for a 1.061 wort (only 1.7% higher gravity) suddenly pitch size would double to 12 million cells/ml. That's a very wobbly way of estimating.

Yea I'm not going to use Wyeasts rates. But I've always done 1m cells/ml/degree plato. That's what my beersmith settings are setup as for ales. I just didn't know rates also were just cells/ml. That's what was throwing me off

 

[Nathan Hassey]

I always use calculators but even calculators use cells/ml/degree plato and they weren't matching Stones which is why i was confused.

 

[IslandLizard]

rates also were just cells/ml.

Those rates have taken the wort's gravity into consideration by including "nominal" values. Many craft ales are in the 1.050-1.070 range.