Firestone Walker's Jim Crooks Yeast Pitch Formula During my 2007 Road Brewer trip, I spent a good bit of time at Firestone-Walker Brewery with Lab Manager Extraordinare, Jim Crooks. I asked Jim if he had one piece of advice for small and brewpub brewers, advice that would increase the quality of their beers, what would it be. Without hesitation Jim advised that brewers could dramatically improve beer quality by accurately pitching the correct quantity of yeast. A big thank you to Jim for sharing his technique with my readers: All calculations are done in Plato. Required Equipment: Microscope
with 40X ocular
Standard yeast pitching calculations dictate that for proper ale fermentation there will need to be 1.0 X 106 (1 million) cells per milliliter of wort per degree Plato. It has been stated that Lager brews would require 2 times the yeast of an ale brew of the same starting O.G. Most
yeast slurries require dilution for ease in cell counting In
order to not appear to favor one yeast supplier over another, here are links to
Wyeast and Brewing Science Institute's webpages on yeast pitching: To use Jim's interactive Yeast Pitch Rate Chart you will need the following information: ~
Original gravity of the brew to be pitched
Here is a link to Jim's interactive Yeast Pitch Rate Chart. You must have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer, and you must enable Macros when the question pops up. Just plug in your numbers. The chart is set up to be a really simple tool to give an understanding on yeast pitching volumes.
Enjoy,
Jim
Jim Crooks |