So I'm making my first batch using liquid yeast and last night I put together a starter for it. I'm only brewing 3 gallons, so I made a 1-liter starter, figuring that'd get me to around 150 billion cells and SURELY that would be enough, right? Except, oops, this is a big beer (wee heavy at ~9.7% ABV) and after a quick trip to the Mr Malty calculator, it looks like I need something closer to 180 billion cells. It seems like I should have made a 1.6 liter starter in the first place, in order to get that many cells. So my question is, can I boil up another 600 mL of starter wort and add it it my existing starter? If I do, how long do I need to wait before it'll be ready for pitching? I had hoped to brew this one tonight, but I don't want to screw it up by under-pitching.
I wouldn't worry about it but you can definitely add the 600ml of extra wort if you so choose. You should be just fine pitching what you got. If you do add more wort to the starter it will take a day or 2 to fully ferment but pitching an active starter is never a bad thing especially with a bigger beer.
Please excuse the thread jack, but...when adding the starter to the wort for fermentation, do you swirl the starter first to pick up both the solids and liquids or should you just pour in the liquid? Thx.
If you wanna make damn sure you have enough, I'd let this one ferment out for 2 days, chill it, then decant it. Pour another batch of cooled wort on the yeast cake, and wait another 2 days or so before pitching into your main batch.
I usually do a good swirl before I pour it into the wort. If there is still some left on the bottom of the flask I'll usually pour some clean water into there and do one more swirl to make sure I got it all.
The solids contain the bulk of the yeast. Some will crash the starter in the fridge to settle the yeast then decant most of the liquid, leaving enough to suspend the yeast "solids" and then pitch that (the suspended solids). Others may use all the liquid to suspend the yeast and pitch the entire starter. It depends on user preference and whether or not you want the starter to become part of your beer.
Step starters aren't always simple math. Yeast work on a parabola of growth according to how much yeast are around them and how much food is available. Maybe someone can help chime in who didn't skip that chaper in Yeast. In short, check some step calculators. 1.6 liters of starter won't be quite the same as a 1 liter starter and then a .6 liter of starter. I woldn't be surprised if you have to throw another liter at the project. I'll also lean towards what @tkdchampxi said. Pitch it and ferment a little cool. This is my go to calculator: http://www.yeastcalculator.com/
Yeah, I wound up just pitching the stuff last night, since it seemed like I wasn't too far off the number of cells I needed and I didn't want to wait the day or two that adding another step to my starter would have required. And it'll definitely be fermenting on the cool side, the ambient temp in the basement is 62F right now. I won't even get to use the fridge that I moved downstairs last weekend!
They can be a little tricky. FWIW, BrewCipher recommends them (# and sizes of steps) automatically when appropriate. No need to play around, unless you want to.
