Yeast Starter

Ok, so made my first yeast starter with DME and Wyeast a couple days ago. I have a nice build up. But am now wondering if I can simply(carefully) pour off the DME wort and keep the yeast cake to pour off into my good wort? Suggestions and advice for this padawan would be appreciated!

Yep...This is the preferred method for many and the only way I will do my lighter lagers. Just refrigerate the starter for 24-48 hours then carefully decant off the liquid...leaving just enough behind to help stir up the yeast cake.

Yes that is what you want to do. Just be careful you don't loose any of the good yeast when decanting.

Thanks guys

This might be a dumb question, but why not dump the whole starter into the fermenter?

You can, and plenty of people do on occasion. It's a judgement call that considers the volume of the starter and the style of beer as to whether you want the entire starter to be mixed in with your primary beer. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't.

I decant and add just the yeast slurry at the bottom of my starter because I don't want the starter to affect the taste of my beer. The wort is unhopped and fermentation is completely uncontrolled, so who knows what it would taste like (Though-- now that I say it-- I'm considering tasting it next time). I don't want my wort to be tainted with strange flavored starter.

If the size of the starter is <= 5% of the batch size, I pitch the whole starter, and have never noticed any off flavors as a result
If the size of the starter is >= 10% of the batch size, I chill and decant the starter, adding just the slurry. I do this for lagers. To be honest, I don't know if it is necessary, but I don't want to take a chance.
If the size of the starter is > 5% of the batch size and < 10%, then I don't know what I would do, but this has never occurred for me, so I won't worry about it until it happens.

-a.