Beersmith 2 (Beta Patch 38) - Yeast Starter Error?

[usurpers26]

Calculating a starter for 15.5 gallons of a 1.050 beer with yeast production date of 6/1/2011.  This should give me ~544bil cells required.

If I go to my recipe --> Yeast Starter this is what happens ONLY if I select Wyeast Forbidden Fruit.  I have selected about 10 other yeast strains and the numbers are correct.

Initially, the numbers are accurate (544bil cells required).  However, as soon as I add yeast, pick Forbidden Fruit , the amount and production date - the "yeast cells needed" goes through the roof - up to 725 billion.

Talk about a shot in the dark that our next brew happens to be using this strain of yeast!

Finally, I see that the starter size is tied into whatever your mash units are set to.  Is there any possible way to change this?  I know this may be nitpicking but we do our mash in quarts/gallons but our starters in liters.

[BeerSmith]

Hi,
  Could you send me the recipe with the Wyeast Forbidden fruit in it (via email ideally)?

  I just checked the entry for this yeast and I did not see anything unusual.  I added it to a recipe and again it looked OK, so I want to try to get to the bottom of this.

  I'm planning to add another set of units for starter sizes for a future update- several people have requested it.

Brad

[usurpers26]

Sure Brad, what email addy should I send the bsmx file to?

Hi,
  Could you send me the recipe with the Wyeast Forbidden fruit in it (via email ideally)?

  I just checked the entry for this yeast and I did not see anything unusual.  I added it to a recipe and again it looked OK, so I want to try to get to the bottom of this.

  I'm planning to add another set of units for starter sizes for a future update- several people have requested it.

Brad

[BeerSmith]

Send it to the name beersmith (at my main domain name beersmith.com)

Brad

[BeerSmith]

OK,
  I opened your recipe and I think I found the issue.  The forbidden fruit yeast is listed as a wheat yeast, while the others are listed as ale yeasts.

  There are three different yeast pitch rates you can actually set from the Options->Yeast Starter tab.  One is used for ale (0.75 million cells per milliliter per degree plato), a higher rate is used for hybrids such as wheat yeast (1.0 million cells/ml-P) and a third rate for lagers (1.5 million cells/ml-P).

  When you select a wheat yeast such as the forbidden fruit, BeerSmith uses the "hybrid" pitch rate requirement to calculate the yeast cells needed - which increases the number of cells needed by about 33% over an ale.  If you picked a lager yeast you would see a much larger increase (100%!).

  The 725 billion cells corresponds to the higher pitch rate of 1 million cells/ml-P for a wheat (hybrid) beer.

  If you really don't want to use the higher hybrid pitch rate, you can either adjust the pitch rate under Options->Yeast Starter or you can change the yeast type to "Ale" for this recipe only.

Cheers,
Brad

[ChrisNH]

That explains the similar problem I had with Belgian Ardennes yeast I (wyeast 3522), thanks!

If I am using the yeast to make a non-hybrid beer.. for instance in this case I made a Belgian Pale Ale with it.. would I still need the enhanced pitched rate? That is.. is the increase a function of the yeast or a function of it's use?

Perhaps this is something that could be selectable on the starter screen or at least explained by displaying the yeast type.

Chris

[BeerSmith]

Chris,
  If you want to change it for just one batch the easiest thing is to edit the yeast in your recipe and change its type to ale - which will force the ale rate to be used.

Brad

[ChrisNH]

Chris,
  If you want to change it for just one batch the easiest thing is to edit the yeast in your recipe and change its type to ale - which will force the ale rate to be used.

Brad

Thats what I did after I read this, thanks. I will pay attention to that when I am using an unfamiliar yeast going forward.

I did like that I could also modify the base cell count when using a propagator pack, then specify 2 (I got 2 old packs for free from the LHBS) and the starter automatically generated the correct starting count. With online tools I have used I had to trick it into having the correct starting count.

Chris