If I’m brewing a 2 gallon 1.080 OG … Can I use the whole pack Wyeast 1056 American ale …Just wondering if this would be enough yeast since the OG for the Wyeast 1056 American Ale is 1.060…Does the OG OF A RECIPE CHANG IF YOU SPLIT THE RECIPE IN HALF FOR A 2 1/2 gallon recipe or does it stay the same?
When you use half the fermentables of a recipe in one half the volume of the recipe the estimated OG will remain the same. If you would half the fermentables but retain the full recipe volume the OG would be halved.
Wyeast does say one smack pack is good for a five gallon brew up to an estimated OG of 1.060. This may work if you want to pitch the absolute minimum number of yeast cells and the yeast has been packaged the same day you are brewing. We can’t get yeast that fresh and be sure it was handled properly to have maximum viability. It is best to always make a starter with liquid yeast.
You may not need a large starter if the production date of the yeast is fairly recent. This is the calculator I like to use. The calculator also has an over build option to save some of the yeast from the starter to have fresh yeast for a later brew.
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True, when you cut a recipie in half, you do not change the OG, but since you’re not cutting the size of the smack pack in half, you’re actually getting more yeast per volume. That is, a whole smack pack in 2.5 g will result in 2x the cells/ml, as a smack pack in 5 g.
As for the “Up to 5 gallons of 1.060” there is a real disconnect between Wyeast recommendations and most online calculators. If you plug 5 gallons of 1.060 into the calculator @flars linked, it says you need more than 200 billion cells, or double what comes in a fresh smack pack.
For your 2 gallons of 1.080, Wyeast would probably say the whole smack pack is more than sufficient; while the online calculators say it’s no where near enough. Wyeast is playing the bare minimum game to keep yeast costs down. Meanwhile the calculators look to the ideal counts cost is no object, (money or time cost)
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