will one Vile make due

how many gallons is your batch?

 

For a 5 gallon batch, you'll still make beer, but it will be under pitching and therefore less than ideal.

Also, its vial, not vile.

 

If you don't like making starters, just use dry yeast like US-05 and be done with it. Or keep doing what you're doing. If you're looking for a "Yeah, 1 vial no issue at 1.074 go ahead" you are not going to get it from this forum unless you're brewing a 2 gallon batch. Consensus of the majority here will tell you to pitch proper amounts of yeast based on volume and gravity.

 

You really should make a starter for a 1.074 OG beer.

Cheers!

 

One vial of any liquid yeast pitched into a 74 wort will indeed be vile.

 

You definitely need to make a starter from 1 vial or use 3 vials here. You're going to need around or just under 300 billion cells. Roughly 100 billion per vial. Roughly x3 per good starter, but depends on how well you aerate and amount of nutrients for your starter.

 

Also for an IPA I would shoot for a bit drier finish than 1.017, closer to 1.012 and probably end up around 8% ABV at SG of 1.074. If 1.017 is what you're shooting for go with it. I often like some IPA with a little more sweetness if there is a large amount of bitterness for balance. But thats the upper end of an IPA's FG range.

 

Make a starter. You are gonna stress your yeast out.

 

What's the date of your yeast? Best I can tell Brewtoad ignores the loss of viability due to age (which is significant). Very possible you are dealing with a lot less than 100B cells. But why guess . . . use the calculator at yeastcalculator.com.

My beers usually turn out good.
The only way to know for sure if a starter helps is to ferm a split-batch; one seriously under-pitched and one at optimum pitching.

 

Like most other people, I recommend you start doing starters. If not, then I would use 3 smack packs or 3 vials as the calculator suggests. Pay attention to the dates on the vials, too. The older they are, the less viable the yeast.

 

Those of you who mention dates speak very true. At my brewery, all yeast is either used within a week of the day that it was shipped from Wyeast, or it gets fed concentrated wort, which gives us one more week of life for every time it is fed. At most, I feed it twice before dumping it.

Usually, the yeast isn't actually dying after just one week, but it is becoming less vital. Before I started our current procedures, I used yeast sometimes that was 2 weeks old and I would end up with a 6 or 7 day ferment instead of our typical 3 days for an ale. I do check viability when I count our yeast, and at 2 weeks it was always still at least 95% viable, but not nearly as vital.

 

Wyeast does encourage that their commercial yeast products be used quickly:

“Yeast should only be stored 10 to 14 days under optimal conditions. The longer a culture is stored, the more glycogen reserves are used. As glycogen reserves fall, so does vitality and ultimately viability.”

Cheers!

 

Interesting. I am going to check my sheet that I get from them when I go in later today. I'm pretty sure what gets mailed to commercial breweries states to use within a week.

 

Wouldn't you suppose this also applies to their homebrew yeast products?

 

You would think so, but I think that 14 days is really generous for the time that yeast can be stored without feeding. Like I said, we don't store it that long anymore without feeding because of vitality concerns that we have witnessed when doing so.

 

Yep, vitality is indeed an issue: “The longer a culture is stored, the more glycogen reserves are used. As glycogen reserves fall, so does vitality…”

Cheers!

 

From a practical standpoint, with most of use getting yeast from the middleman at Northern Brewer, MoreBeer, etc., we are not going to be guaranteed yeast that is 2 weeks old or less. This is especially true for some of the more obscure, less used strains*. It means that it becomes much more important for homebrewers to make starters and use multiple vials, where we take into consideration that the time past since the date of manufacture reduces the pitching rate of viable yeast.

*I have been burned with lager strains in the past, where they show up close to the expiration date. I end up having to increase the volume of the starter greatly, which I find really awkward, or I have to order more of the nearly expired product to get more viable cells in a starter.

 

Peter,

The information I posted above is for the Wyeast commercial yeast products. The commercial yeast products are produced/packaged to be used quickly; 1-2 weeks.

The Wyeast/White Lab homebrewing yeast strains are produced/packaged to be ‘good’ for much, much longer. Wyeast lists a best by timeframe of 6 months for their smack-packs and White Labs lists 4 months for their vials. Dr. Chris White has made mention they might list a longer timeframe for the White Labs PurePitch packaging in the future.

Whether you want to make a starter or not with the homebrewing products is your choice but the 1-2 week timeframe is not applicable to them.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Thanks for clarifying this. I wonder what the difference is in how these products are tweeted. I did try to listen to a podcast where Chris White talked about the PurePitch packaging, but I really didn't retain the info presented. Will need to take the time to digest this to see if is informative.