Yeast pitch rate

Why does BS suggest i pitch 50 packets of wyeast on a 1.050 beer?

Even the wyeast website says a smack pack (100 bill cells) is good up to 1.060, and i bet they would love to sell me 50 packs.

BS also says i need 254 billion cells, that would be 2.5 packs which is still higher then waht the yeast supplier recomends.

Check the date in the calculation.  The calculator decreases the 100 B cells of the original smack pack based on the date.  If your date is erroneously out of date by a year or more you could (as far as the calculator knows) starting with only 3-4 Billion cells.  And you would need a hundred of those to get the required cell count.

Gotcha

Thanks