Yeast starter for barleywine

[lmarkis]

Brewing a barley wine this Friday, began my yeast starter yesterday. I'm just not sure if I will be under pitching or over pitching. Thoughts?

I'm shooting for an OG of 1.100. I began with 1300ml of water and 1 cup of DME. I pitched one vile of White Labs London Ale yeast. I know the typical cell count per vile is 100 million. For my barley wine with an OG of 1.100 I need a cell count between 353-375 billion cells.

With my current yeast starter of 1300ml/1 cup DME, will I have enough or should I step it up one more time with another 1300ml/1 cup DME?

 

[CastleHollow]

What was the production date on the yeast vial, and are you using a stir plate? You won't be hurting anything if you step it up again, but your current starter might be sufficient.

 

[solbes]

If you step it up again, I would increase the starter volume. At least 1.5, if not 2x your original starter. You want them to have to reproduce and if you just feed them the same amount they will not need much additional reproduction.

Seems like a small starter, especially if you don't have a stir plate. With intermittent shaking (no stir plate), you need 1.71 litre starter, but this requires 2 vials of yeast that are very fresh. If you wanted to use one fresh vial, you need 4.25 liters of starter. For a beer that big, I wash and pitch an entire yeast cake from a previous batch. Just easier for me than making a 4-5 qt starter.

MrMalty can sometimes be a little heavy on the yeast recommendations. But with a big beer, you don't want a stuck fermentation, so you should probably go with their recommendation.

 

[lmarkis]

I am using a stir plate. I got the stir plate from northern brewer. The instructions stated that for a 1000ml flask I should use 650ml of water and 1/2 cup of DME for a 5 gallon batch of ale up to about 1.080 starting gravity. For ales with gravity over 1.080 I should use a 2000ml flask filled w/ 1300 ml wort and 1 cup DME.

I have a 2000ml flask. This is my first yeast starter so I want to be sure I don't under pitch. Based on your responses I think I might step up a second time by using 1950ml and 1.5 cups of DME to get more yeast cells.

I just really have no clue how to determine if enough is enough. If I have 100 million cells in a vial of white labs and I add 1300ml of wort, is there a general guideline as to how much that increases the cell count?

Mr. Malty says that with a stir plate and an OG of 1.100, I should have 1.11 Liters of starter which is where I'm at right now (1300ml = 1.3L). It said I should have used two vials, but I only used one. Maybe I should step it up x1.5 and then refrigerate it to compensate for not using a second vial?

 

[solbes]

Yeah you can adjust Mr Malty with the sliding bar. By choosing "stir plate" method and by sliding the growth factor all the way to the right, it says you should have 2.75 L of starter using one vial (yeast production date 3/26 which is obviously not possible). With a yeast production date of late February, it jumps to 3.66L.

So I think your plan to max your flask is a good one after decanting the starter beer from your first step. Make sure you can fit whatever you add without spilling yeast out of the top (1950 mL may be too much in a 2L flask).