Stepping up a yeast starter
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:14 am
So I'm brewing my first lager this weekend (the Munich Dunkel from BCS). I'm trying to build up enough yeast as per Jamil's calculator and since I only have 2000mL flasks I decided to take a multi-stepped approach. According to Wyeast's calculator I can do two 1000mL steps to get pretty close to the yeast count I want. So I made a 1L starter last week and it's been crashed in the fridge. I'm going to pitch the crashed yeast into another 1L starter tonight so it can ferment out and be settled by Saturday. My question is, am I really going to get enough growth out of the second step? If the initial yeast pitch grew up the cell count enough to ferment 1L of wort, will it really grow more to ferment the next 1L of wort? It seems to me that the yeast would not need to grow any more cells for the next step. I assume my thinking is wrong, but can anyone confirm that?