First post... Yeast starter question

[KDuval]

Got just a few extract batches under my belt, and have done a good bit of research about brewing, but still have lots to learn... clearly!
My neighbor and I have decided to team up and combine our kits from two seperate sources in one full boil franken-batch. He got his locally, and I got mine with an Amazon gift card that I had from X-mas. I have only brewed with kits similar to his, which was purchased locally at a brew shop which come with White Labs vials. His kit comes with a White Labs California Ale yeast, and I had planned to make a starter with his vial to pitch in the mega batch. Now I am questioning if it is going to be enough. I have tried using some free brewing software, but I dont really know what I am doing, so I thought I might ask here for a little guidance.

Our fermentables

Amber Ale
6.6lbs golden light liquid
1lb sparkling amber DME

Steeping
.5 crystal 70, .25 munich, .25 biscuit

Tinkers Damn English Strong Ale
3.3lbs light malt syrup
3.3lbs amber malt syrup
1lb brown sugar

Steeping
.5 150L crystal malt, .25 90L, .5 special roast malt

I have been considering omitting the brown sugar, but would probably leave it in if there will be enough yeast to ferment everything. I made my starter this morning with 2L water, and 2cups Light DME, no stir plate, but been shaking pretty frequently all day.

So, do you think it will be enough, or will I need to do something else? I have another 2 cups DME, and of course I still have the yeast packet that came with my kit that I wasnt planning on messing with. Let me know what you think.

Thanks

 

[bottlebomber]

I'm confused what you're asking. Are you going to to split the starter between those two recipes?

 

[KDuval]

Not exactly... the two recipes are going to be mixed, then seperated into two seperate fermenters and the starter split between the two? Sounds a little wierd, I know.

 

[Hex23]

What volume do you intend to target? I assume since you say full boil, you mean a standard 5 to 5.5 gallon batch. That will be a pretty strong beer, so I tend to doubt that a 2L starter is as big as would be "recommended". Whether that will cause off flavors in the beer is debatable. I think plenty of people have probably made fine beers that strong on a 2L starter, but it's probably not "optimal" or may take significant conditioning to clear any off flavors. Dry yeast has much higher cell count density than liquid yeast, so it's possible that the dry yeast packet is enough alone, but overpitching can be bad too. There are plenty of good starter calculators on-line, try mrmalty.com or yeastcalc.com

 

[bottlebomber]

These fermentables in a 10 gallon batch will give you about 1.056, with the sugar. A liter starter for each 5 gallon batch is plenty.

 

[KDuval]

No we planned on boiling 11-12 gallons of wort to end up with 2 5-5.5 gallon batches.

So maybe I need to get into the dry yeast after all.

Thanks bottlebomber, that sounds perfect

 

[Hex23]

If you completely believe the yeast calculators, then you'd need a 5-6 liter single stepped intermittently shaken starter to get to the ~430 B cells needed for "optimal" pitch rate for the full 11 gallons of 1.056 wort. But because it's non-linear a 2 L starter is plenty for half of that wort. About 2 11.5 gram packets of dry yeast would handle the entire 11 gallons. So, yes, I would consider using both the starter and dry yeast. In fact it could be a nice experiment to ferment each with a different yeast to learn what difference the yeasts make.

 

[bottlebomber]

If you completely believe the yeast calculators, then you'd need a 5-6 liter single stepped intermittently shaken starter to get to the ~430 B cells needed for "optimal" pitch rate for the full 11 gallons of 1.056 wort. But because it's non-linear a 2 L starter is plenty for half of that wort. About 2 11.5 gram packets of dry yeast would handle the entire 11 gallons. So, yes, I would consider using both the starter and dry yeast. In fact it could be a nice experiment to ferment each with a different yeast to learn what difference the yeasts make.

I support this. Use both on the split batch to see which you like.