My yeast starter big enough?

[TimG]

Making a Belgian Tripel, 23L batch at 7.9% ABV. Made a 1.5L starter of Wyeast 1214 earlier this week. Beersmith is telling me I will need 3L starter! The yeast package said Nov/2011 so Beersmith tells me it only has 70% viability, which hurts me quite a bit.

Does this make sense? I will be using the starter, but I can scale back the ABV if I need to.

[John G]

If the wyeast is from Nov the viability ranges from 44-66% depending on whether it's the beginning or end of November. If it's the end, you should have about a 3L starter. you can build up the same way though by putting the settled yeast from your 1.5L starter into another 1.5L starter to double it which should get you close enough to the same thing as making a 3L starter.

I wouldn't recommend dropping the ABV - not if you want to brew a good tripel

Mrmalty.com has a good yeat pitching rate calculator

[mr x]

1.5 l is better than nothing. Will probably be OK, but would be better with O2.