How much yeast for 80l brew?

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ManseMasher

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I am about to get a bit bigger in terms of brew lengths. If I was to aim for a 1.055 SG and 80l in the fv, would four vials of liquid yeast suffice? I'm thinking that with an 8 litre starter, then cultivating my own from there (or brewday v. expensive!). In the ballpark or way off?
 
I dunno but I don't think you can rely on 4 liquid vials, and it's expensive. Making a 4 litre starter in a dj would be much cheaper and probably more reliable and probably enough, without doing the maths.. You could use 3 dry 11g packets of course.
 
I've just been looking at Mr Malty - the numbers come up with 4 liquid vials in almost a 10 litre starter!! There has to be a better way - as you say clibit 28 quid for yeast is more than I'll pay for the entire grain bill. Guess I'll get on with a starter middle of January to get enough for brewing in February, according to pitching calc 800 billion cells required.....
 
If of course you dont want to buy 4 vials and do it cheaper either just make a normal 23L brew take the whole yeast cake and dump your 80L on top (which I wouldn't really advise tbh) or just grow the yeast up from 1 vial. The yeast calc I linked has a step up facility so you can see how many step ups you need to do from 100bl to 809 bl
 
I think MyQul already suggested this but coulnd't you use one vial for a 2 or 4 liter starter which you could then ferment out decant and then repitch into a 20 liter starter?

Your starters are going to be the same size as a large batch for most of us!!! Clibit does brews half the size of your potential starters :lol:
 
Up next, in the market place forum, HBF Merri-go-round stir plates (postage from NI might be a bit off putting though)
Haven't worked out how to avoid the council yet.....

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Seriously though, if I need that much for 80l, how much do the big boys chuck in? Must be by the lorry load!
 
I agree with Clibit, the cheapest way is to just make a regular 23L batch and harverst most (about 1.6L) of the yeast cake and dump it into the 80L.

You could rinse it but at a guess you would need 5L-10L of starter wort to do so (I'm not keen on using water to rinse yeast with)
 
I helped for a couple of days at a brewery that made 1700 litre batches. They harvested yeast from the fermenters and kept it in one of those large plastic storage boxes. About a third of a box went into a batch of beer.

Hope that helps. :-)
 
From your big brew thread, if your going with WLP002, once you've decided how to go about aquiring enough yeast, at least it'll be really easy to harvest with a conical because it's so flocctuant
 
I think I'm going to save everything that comes out of the yeast drain, and pitch with some of it in a smaller brew to see how it goes. If it works, then next big brew gets everything from the last brew....
 
You're stepping it up there, MM. Clibit's on the ball, as usual. I plugged what you want into mr malty. Not lilterally, of course! Don't laugh, clibit, my auto correct thinks you're 'celibate'. Anyway, you'd need something like 2 vials in about a 10L starter. I take mr malty with a pitch of salt, TBH, but it gives you a rough idea. Like others have suggested, I'd go with a single vial (fresh) and make a starter, say 1L then step up to at least 2L. This is manageable with a stir plate set up and a 3L+ flask/bottle. Then I'd pitch the yeast from this into about a 10L starter (1.040). I wouldn't use a brew for it at this stage. You need to propagate yeast, not brew beer. It's not easy to stir a 10L+ starter. Use a continuous air supply instead. This could be something as simple as an aquarium pump with a 0.5 micron air stone and simple 0.2 micron air filter. Obviously, you wouldn't have to do this for every brew. You'll be harvesting from those lovely new conicals :mrgreen:
 
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