Can starter be pitched cold?

I'm bewing tomorrow and I wanted to chill my starter so I can more easily decant the spent wort. Can I just pull it right out of the fridge, decant, then pitch while the yeast is cold? Or should I allow the starter to return to room temp. before pitching? Thanks.

I would let it get to room temperature...

Pull from fridge prior to brewing, decant, let it warm up during the brew process.

The yeast will go dormant if you chill it. It should be at the same temperature as the wort it is being pitched into.

phidelt844 said:

Pull from fridge prior to brewing, decant, let it warm up during the brew process.

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+1

Or if the yeast is fairly flocculent just leave it unmolested at room temp overnight and pour off what you can. The yeast won't be as firm at the bottom but you can still pour off most of the starter wort.

I never warm my chilled starters. I figure that the slurry will reach the proper temp quickly when it hits the wort. I'm not even certain that the yeast would become active if you simply warmed it with nothing for them to eat.

Tech211 said:

I never warm my chilled starters. I figure that the slurry will reach the proper temp quickly when it hits the wort. I'm not even certain that the yeast would become active if you simply warmed it with nothing for them to eat.

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The yeast will be active when you put it in wort, but putting cold yeast slurry in warm wort is pretty shocking for the yeast. If you don't want to stress the yeast, you can pitch slightly cooler yeast into the wort. When I make a lager, for example, I'll pitch a 48 degree starter into 50 degree wort and the yeast like that!

But to take it out of the fridge and throw it into 70 degree wort is not a great idea. That would be stressful to the yeast.

Yooper's got it right.

Remember that you can create all kinds of problems for yourself by stressing the yeast. You want happy yeasties.

Sounds right. It's not something I worry about because the only time I use liquid yeast is when I'm making a lager, so my 40 degree slurry is going into 48degree wort.

It's not ideal, but i have pitched 330 ml bottles of US-05 slurry right out of the fridge and it's gone off like a rocket