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

usurpers26

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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.

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

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

Brad
 
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
 
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
 
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
 
BeerSmith said:
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
 
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