Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:50 am
One vial is enough if you make a starter. I would recommend making at least a 2 liter starter (I think Jamil would probably say 4 or 5 liters). Make it up a couple days ahead of time and then refrigerate it to drop the yeast to the bottom so you can decant most of the liquid. On brew day, take it out to let it warm up to pitching temperature, shake it up good to aerate and get it back into suspension and pitch it into your wort.
A single vial of yeast without a starter is severely underpitching for a 5 gallon batch of a normal gravity beer (<1.060) in spite of what the manufacturers say. For something as high as what you propose (1.080-1.090?), you will have difficulty getting decent attenuation and could possibly run into infection problems due to extremely slow start of fermentation.
Your best bet for a big beer like this is to make another beer in the 1.050 range first with the same yeast and then pitch the big one onto the yeast cake.
Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company
