First Wort Yeast Starter

My last beer brewed I did not quite plan ahead for... I bought the yeast day of, and started my yeast starter same day (brew day). I took my first runnings and watered it down to equal a ~1.04 wort and pitched my wyeast smack pack and threw it on a stirplate for the rest of the brewday. It grew a nice Krausen within 1 hour.

My typical brew day is ~6 hours. The primary fermentation took off like a rocket, is this a typically OK method or was I just lucky?

It worked out great and if I can do it this way everytime it would save alot of time from pre-preparing yeast starters.

From my experience, there are two ways people make starters:

1. Make the starter the day of to "wake" the yeast up
2. Make the starter 2-3 days before to grow yeast

Number 1 doesn't mean that you have enough viable yeast and you could still be underpitching. Fermentation just starts quicker because they have been munching ahead of time. However, depending on the strain, the yeast will begin to reproduce in as little as an hour or two. I have done number 1 in situations similar to yours, but I prefer to do number 2 and I have much better results because you have the proper pitching rates. That is the purpose of making a starter after all. It really only takes about 20 minutes for me to make a starter, so it's not that big of a deal. Your always free to do what works best for you, but I recommend making it a couple days ahead of time so you have the proper amount of yeast.

What you're saying makes complete sense. The logic behind the method for me was the fact that I didn't even have to make a yeast starter... But growth factor would obviously have to come into play. I wonder what a side by side demo would show... either way sounds like you are creating a healthy fermentation with a small variation between reproduction and attenuation? My only reason for considering this method is to save time on creating yeast starters... and for a basic bev. sounds like it can and will do OK?

For something normal gravity I think doing it that same day is perfectly fine .... big beers though I think a couple days ahead would be best

I really don't like this method, maybe it is simple, butt KISS is not always good way to go.. IMO
First, you don't allow yeast to grow, so you cant calculate right pitching amount (if you dont start with right number of cells), and secondly you are not boiling wort and it can be infected with bacterias.
Maybe you could try to can this wort in jars (be sure that lids are sealing), place it on cool place and boil it before making starter for next batch..

You really should be boiling ANY wort before putting your yeast into it. When your yeast was going, so was a huge lactobacillus culture. I hope this beer turns out ok, but for next time, make sure you bring your wort up to a boil before cooling it (by diluting with water is fine) and then adding your yeast.

I guess I thought he did boil it ... I thought that was a given so be didn't say he did it

Nope didn't boil it. Didn't even think about it at the time since I was using clean filtered water before the mash. Where would the lacto come from? The grains? BTW the beer fermented out just fine and is currently cold crashing after a week long dryhop. Tastes great so far as well. Next time I am too pressed for time to create a yeast starter ahead of time I will just run down and grab an extra pack from the LHBS.

To be honest this thing fermented just as well as any beers I have done with a starter. I think it was because I threw a pack of US 05 ontop of the starter shortly before pitching. Maybe I lucked out, but I am still glad I asked.