I use a stirplate for my starters, so they're always as good as you can get. I actually put the first step of a two step starter in the fridge tonight to cold crash until tomorrow night. I'll be making the second step starter then to let it run until Friday evening, at which point it will go into the fridge again to cold crash until it's pitched Saturday evening.
Using stirplates for starters means you're getting maximum O2 infusion and degassing for the entire starter time. They're also done much faster, and can be much smaller in size to get the same cell count. IF you're serious about starters, IMO, you'll have/get/make a stirplate to use with them. :rockin:
BTW, that only gets you to the pitching cell count, NOT what you'll need to ferment the beer. You'll get at least a few doublings post pitching of the starter. Mine is calling out 3.03 doublings from when the starter slurry gets pitched until the final cell count is achieved (which is when the lag phase ends). I'll be using my pure O2 setup for the brew, giving it about 1.5lpm for 60-90 seconds before pitching the slurry. I plan on getting an actual O2 meter/tester in September/October (post move) so that I'll be able to start building a database of how much O2 to give certain OG ranges.
