Beer Forum

I have a Blichmann conical and would like to brew a lager. Around 1.050. Mr. Malty says I need around 1L (billions) of cells. That is a lot of yeast. What is the best way to make/step up to get enough of this yeast? If I step up yeast in a 2L starter it will take me 12-14 days just to get enough yeast. Am I missing something? I use a 2L flask with a stir plate. I think it may be easier to use a 5 gallon carboy to brew a lager. I usually have around 12-13 gallons of wort in my conical.

3 Dogs

do a low gravity 5 gal batch and use the yeast cake to ferment the 13 gal one.

Yep, I'm having a similar issue with my new brewing setup. I'm going from a 5-gal system to a 10-15gal one, and I'm having sticker shock on the yeast I'll need. One observation: you can brew a 5-gallon "starter" in 14 days and harvest enough cake to pitch to your next batch. Another option is using dry yeast; it's a LOT cheaper than liquid. I've used a lot of dry US-05 and US-04, but never tried fermentis' saflager strains though. Personally, I'm doing a little bit of both: I bought three packs of yeast which I'll grow up into three starters in parallel. I don't have three stir-plates, but for my situation (17 gal of 1.065 ale), the calc calls for 3 packs into 6L of intermittent-shake starters. I've got some extra 1gal vessels hanging around, so I'll just make three 2L starters. Gonna have to start harvesting yeast for serious now.

I think I will do just that...make a 5 gallon starter and go from there. Dry lager yeast? I have had no luck so far. I just didn't like the final product. It wasn't worth the effort. A lot of homebrewers have good luck with dry lager yeast, I am glad. I just don't like the beer.

Thanks for the replies,

3 Dogs

p.s. If it costs so much for double the amount of lager yeast as compared to ale, why is there so much freakin lager beers in the stores?

I typically use 2 smack packs into a 2 gallon starter for a 11 gallon 1.048 Helles. You're going from roughly 200 billion cells to 800 billion cells (4X), so you really don't need to do a second step. I'm using a 3 gal enamel steel pot from extract days as the starter fermenter on an orbital stirrer.

That's about the max I do on a new yeast pitch. I'll then repitch into higher gravity batches.