Yeast starter question: do I really need a stir plate?

Cool. I'd love to see the data from that.

 

Because I trust Vinnie. He publishes the recipe for Pliny where it calls for 1056 or 001. This is virtually identical to US-05. If we're talking a 5 gallon batch you need 270'ish billion cells. His directions are to pitch two packets or make a starter if using liquid.

Don't take this wrong (and I really like my stir plate), but knowledge of how all of this works is far more important than the tools in your brewhaus. My Pliny clone is carbing now (270B of re-used 1056, stepped up twice on a stir plate). My highest-scored beer ever was fermented with a single packet of US-05. Yeast . . . the final frontier . . .

 

Process:
1) Make well-aerated 1-L starter of appropriate gravity with wort saved from last batch four days prior to pitching.
2) Rouse yeast in the AM and again in the PM on Day 2 by swirling.
3) Cold-crash starter in the PM of Day 3
4) Bring starter to room temperature
5) Decant 'starter beer' just prior to pitching

Why I believe stir plates can be added to the rather long list of unnecessary home brew gadgets is because simple...low-tech methods produce more than adequate colonies of viable yeast.

OP is also free to add aeration stones and pure oxygen infusion devices to the list of other unnecessary home brew gadgets.

 

White Labs packages 70 - 140 billion cells per vial (saccharomyces)
Wyeast packages a minimum of 100 billion cells per smack pack

Recommended pitching rates are 1.0 - 1.5 million cells per mL per degree plato of wort.

For 5 gallons of 1.040 wort = 1,000,000 x 19,200 mL x 10 degree plato = 192 billion cells needed.
So, 192 - 288 billion cells is what your looking for.

I would theorize that the no-stir-plate method would still put you in that range of 1.0 - 1.5 million cells/mL/plato. I use stir plate because I use a lot of Brettanomyces (7-8 day multi stage starters) and because I feel it may produce healthier yeast cells. Either way, you should be fine though.

 

I don't think anyone will dispute that a stir plate works efficiently at building up cell counts, but it's the "other" effects that make a stir plate a "wash" for me. Cold crashing and decanting a highly oxidized starter is not something I want to do routinely.

 

I use one. It builds cell count faster and with less work required by me. And with all of my other unnecessary homebrew gadgets that I use, I appreciate the time, energy and reassurance that the stirplate provides me with.