Brew Day #4 - do I need to postpone for a week?

Took a look a the Brewers Friend Yeast Pitch Rate Calculator today. And it looks like we have been under pitching. But we have been following the advice from Danster that one 11g packet is good for 5 gallon batch. 

Here is the results of the calculator with the cell density adjusted for Danster Nottingham 11g packets that state their cell density is 5 x 10 to the 9 or 5 billion per gram.




And it says, 'Needs starter'. 

Except no one out there on the inter web advises doing a starter with Danster dry yeast and they are manufactured with nutrients that get the yeast going, so its better to use multiple packets, as they are so cheap. 

Danster say that 100g will work for a 100Litre batch. So that would mean I need 2 x 11g packets for a 19l Litre batch. 

And there is this from Danster:

"A 11 gram package of Nottingham can readily handle five gallons of 1.048 OG wort, but would have a struggle handling 1.110 OG wort. It would take two packets to comfortably handle this high gravity wort."

I found this blog that runs through the numbers

I have one packet of Danster and another coming in the post. I think we should at least try with 2 packets and see how that goes. From what I have read, commercial brewers use dry yeast. Not that I am saying this is the best way to go, just that it is valid.

And it seems if we actually want a yeast profile, which ultimately we do in the summer lightening recipe, we should be using either Safale-04 or Wyeast 1380 III, which, strangely enough I have two 'smack packs' of in the fridge. 

These will each need starters - see below. Notice that these have lost 42 billion cells since manufacture. We wouldn't even be able to pitch both packets. But it seems that as long as we use a yeast starter, they will work. I will try to harvest the yeast from the slurry of the second batch.

  
Fridge 1 : Brew #3 : Primary Fermentation
Fridge 2 : Brew #3 : 3 x Mini-Kegs & 10 x 500ml bottle
Fridge 3 : No temp control at present - ordered an STC1000 today

As we have mini-kegs and bottles in fridge 2, we can't move these out of temperature control and would need to wait until we have temp control for Fridge 3. Temperature controller should arrive this week. 

I have an idea for temperature controlling the yeast starters. I have one of these:

Hydropod Propagator

And one of these:

Vitopod Propagator

The base of the Vitopod is heated. The Hydropod will sit on the Vitopod base which has a temperature controlled probe and is designed to keep the temperature up. I just need to properly clean both. 





The idea is to keep the temperature up to the highest that the yeast will accept. For the Wyeast London II it is 23C. Note: Tried this pitch rate calculator from Wyeast. They seem to be showing utter contempt for their customers by not specifying if they refer to the Imperial Gallon or U.S gallon. This renders their efforts useless. Maybe brewers in the US will just assume that there is only one type of Gallon.


Anyhow, a stir plate would increase the amount of yeast cells but I consider this a nice to have. I have purchased a 1" stir bar from Amazon and will head to a car boot sale this weekend to see if I can pick up a box and fan.