Overpitching?

[Stubbie]

With all my Wyeast smak paks, I've made a 1.5L starter first and then split 6 ways into sanitised stubbies. Actually, I leave one part in the original starter vessel and just top up with fresh wort (100g DME/L). About 500 to 750ml for ales. But all else being equal, I'd rather not have the headspace of air in the stubbies, so from now on I'll use "chinotto" bottles and fill to the top. Take up less room in the fridge, too.

I was recently too much of a tightarse and used one of my 1056 stubbies to make up a starter to carry out another split. Not 100% happy with the 3 subsequent brews using "Generation 2" starters, so from now on I plan to split only once. Or perhaps my experience is a reflection of 1056, which I've heard is relatively susceptible to mutation. Maybe. But, I think I will play it safe and go with Gen 1 splits only.

Cheers

[James L]

Yeh i think i'll only use the yeast once... and besides, if you are making 6 stubbies from the one smack pack, thats good value for money.

[Stubbie]

I'm getting all defensive. I have Gen 1 stubbies of 1056, 1318 and 1084 yeast all about 6 mths old as a result of my brewing slowing down over the summer period. Some or all are prob alright, but I'm suspicious of chancing a whole batch of ingredients for the sake of a few dollars so I'm on the verge of tossing the lot out. Not concerned about my sanitation; more the matter of mutation. I'm thinking I'll do a few batches with dried yeast for convenience and once the weather cools and I start brewing more intensively, start all over with fresh liquid yeasts and new splits.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

These days, I have taken to buying new smackpacks and splitting them directly into stubbies without smacking the pack and topping up the stubbies with filtered, boiled, cooled water. It *seems* to work. The only issue I have had was with a Wyeast 3068 yeast which it seems others had issues with anyhoo, so I cannot say for sure that it was my practices.

I was recently given an active starter of Wyeast 1272, which I grew to 2litres, allowed to settle and then decanted the beer and split into three. It appears to work too.

Jamil reckons you can overpitch, in which case you will lose some flavours that the yeast normally give beer, but it seems to be generally held that over is better than under. Kind of like a butcher shop, really.