Starter question for 1.093 Chimay Clone

[jturman35]

Hey guys wanted some input as I am about to brew my largest beer this Friday. I’m using Beer Smith for my starter calculator and it shows 1.8L with 6oz DME using one pack of White Labs WLP570.

This is the largest beer I have done at 1.093 and I am going to attempt to age for a year. I plan to oxygenate the wort prior to pitching and then 8-12 hours after pitching using pure oxygen and stone for 60 secs each. I am also using a stir plate for my starter.

 

[Acaciadrian]

Sounds pretty solid to me. The only thing that I would suggest is checking some other pitch rate calculator to make sure that you are pitching enough good healthy yeast.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/ is one for example. I recently did a 1.102 barley wine(also aging about a year) and I followed the method of multiplying by 10. Started with a 100 ml 1.035 starter let that fizzle out and then added that to 1000 ml of wort to reactivate and grow more cells. This can be done on as large or small scale as you would like but insures that the yeast is healthy and constantly growing.
Also remember yeast nutrient is your friend! It will do no damage but could help a lot! Cheap insurance in my mind!
Let us know how it goes!
Brew on!

 

[jturman35]

I have some yeast nutrient from LD Carlson and it says 1 tsp per gallon but I have been hesitant to use it. Do I add this at the end of the boil?

 

[Acaciadrian]

I have some yeast nutrient from LD Carlson and it says 1 tsp per gallon but I have been hesitant to use it. Do I add this at the end of the boil?

Since I believe LD Carlson’s nutrient is technically for wine/mead/cider I would do about half of that. The stuff I use from my home brew shop is made of diammonium phosphate and food-grade urea( the same as LD) and I use roughly 1/2 teaspoon per gallon for any brew I have starting in that 1.100 range. There are a lot of different suggestions out there as when to add but I typically add it at during the last ten mins of the boil. One other time I added it as I cooled my wort with my immersion chiller and didn’t notice any noticeable difference is activity/fermentation time.

 

[jturman35]

Thanks! I was going to add about 1/2 the recommended just to be on the safe side. I converted tsp - grams so I could measure on my scale and came up with 12 grams. Which is half what the bottle says to add.

 

[griffi]

Curious why you’re not using the Chimay strain which is 500 IIRC...

 

[jturman35]

I am going by this recipe. I don’t think this is an exact clone.

Dark Strong Belgian (Chimay Blue)
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/index.php?threads/Dark-Strong-Belgian-(Chimay-Blue).221451/

 

[griffi]

Cool, hope it turns out great. I’ve had excellent results with 570 but have never used it in a dark ale. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[jturman35]

So far so good! It took off and blew out the blowoff tube 12 hours later! I have never seen a yeast take off so fast. I oxygenated for the second time at 8 hours after pitching and there was 0 Krausen. Came home an hour later and it was blowing out the blow off tube!

 

[Acaciadrian]

So far so good! It took off and blew out the blowoff tube 12 hours later! I have never seen a yeast take off so fast. I oxygenated for the second time at 8 hours after pitching and there was 0 Krausen. Came home an hour later and it was blowing out the blow off tube!

Sounds healthy to me haha!

 

[jturman35]

Update on this: OG came in at 1.091 and FG came in at 1.015.

9.98%