My next beer will be a big, honkin' RIS but not sure what I should be doing when it comes to yeast. I always make a starter, but with a beer with this high of a gravity should I use two smack packs in the starter? If yes, should I double the amount of DME as well? Bonus Question: What is your favorite yeast to use in a RIS?
I like WLP013 London ale in any stout. It has a really nice oak ester that plays nice with a roasty big beer.
Koopa nailed it above. Take your time to make the starter, and give it plenty of oxygen, and maybe a bit more 12 or so hours in. I like wlp004 or 1084 Irish Ale yeast, cause I'm lame like that. Be sure to start ~62, then once the krausen starts to recede, feed it a little sugar and some nutrient, and then let it come up to ~70 to finish.
Koopa said it. I recommend picking a calculator and using it. Not just for this starter, but for any. If the starters you have been making were all the same, regardless of yeast age and gravity of your wort, then your pitch rates have probably been all over the place. And yes, you can use two smackpacks in a starter. With big beers, sometimes it's a choice between that and doing a multi-step (aka step-up) starter.
If everyone took koopa's advice there would be more happy brewers. Yeast growth in a starter is non-linear. Just because you use two packs of yeast doesn't mean you will double your output. If your starter is the wrong size you may be very disappointed in the lack of growth. There is a real possibility two packs is not enough. But the calculators do all the heavy lifting for you . . . yeastcalc even computes your starter ingredients. You didn't ask, but as MrOH said, if you're every going to use oxygen, this is the time.
Overpitching can be a problem. But all other things being equal, it's less of a problem than underpitching.
You need a big flask to get growth. A mother way is to make a low gravity beer and use some of the cake.
My most recent stout was brewed with WLP007. It is fairly neutral and attenuative. hopsandmalts recommendation of 013 for its oaky esters sounds intriguing for this style, but I disliked the flavor profile of this yeast in a recent bitter. To me, it was like tobacco stored in a musty cellar.
Thanks for all the input...i haven't done such a high gravity beer in four or five years so all of this is helpful
I'm surprised to hear that. This has become my go to yeast for anything English as well as all my stouts and even some of my American IPAs. I really like the ester profile especially with anything with "toasty" or "roasty" flavors. What fermentation temperature and cell counts did you use in your bitter?
I don't have those details handy, but I would have approximately followed the mrmalty guidelines and fermented at the low end of the range.
