I brewed a NB Oktoberfest all grain batch (5 gal) over the weekend. I was planning to use the dry yeast 34/70 but due to some Midwest weather event it did not arrive by brew day. So I went to my local brew store, and that only had two packets left but they also had 2 of the liquid Wyeast 2633 . So I grabbed the liquid yeast and made a 1.5 liter starter from one and a 1 liter starter from the other. I just Pitched them both at beer temp of 52deg.
I am hoping I have enough cells but one package was from May and the other dated just a couple of weeks ago. Both starters looked good and spent some time on the stir plate before sitting for a while. I made them on Saturday AM and pitched Tuesday afternoon.
My backup now of course is my 4 packets of dry yeast just arrived so I popped them into the fridge.
I have only made one other lager and had plenty of yeast for that batch (2 starters plus direct pitched one pouch).
I can always toss in a little dry yeast but thought I would give the two starters some time to see how they do.
Any milestones you guys can suggest that would indicate one way or the other if this brew will need more yeast troops to get the job done?
To me, if you had a good krausen going on in your starters, you should be alright… albeit, a starter is not to make beer, rather set the yeast up FOR the job of making beer… What is your starter gravity? The waiting for activity creates some anxiety for me making lagers… The last ones I made, I pitched when the wort was 65-ish… When I saw activity, then I set the temp down to 53*… Sneezles61
Do you use any software that tells you how many billion cells you would need? Brewers Friend has something that will tell you how may you need and what the viability of your yeast is and what size starter to create. By my experience you probably have enough with what you pitched.
I think my starter was on the heavy side… maybe 1.050 or so. Not sure why I made it that heavy. The beer is a 1.060.
I did use a starter calc, it seemed to call for I think like 400 (million or billion ? ) cells I forget really. I think I was close to that but maybe a bit short.
Went back into Beersmith. It estimated the brew would need 425 billion cells. I added up both starters I made, and factoring in the age of one of them I still theoretically should have about 475 billion cells. So not as bad as I was thinking. I will just give it some time as I am in no hurry for this batch. I can watch it with the Tilt Hydrometer in the fermenter so I will be able to tell if it gets stuck.
Sounds like you have it worked out. I would wait it out. If you don’t see activity within 35 hours then you should worry. This is why you want to stock a few dry packets in the fridge. Been in the same boat. Luckily a LHBS is close by but charge an exorbitant amount for their items.
