how soon in advance to start a starter?

I want to make a brew Thursday night and I am using white labs liquid yeast. How soon in advance can I start the starter I was thinking Wednesday night?

I try to make mine 2 days in advance, but as long as it has time to get going you should be good to go. 24 hours would be the minimum I think though.

Make it tonight for thursday. I have had one going for 2 weeks, but I started with yeast in a bottle.

Haven't tried it myself, but the best suggestion I've heard is to make 2 starter wort batches and pitch into one several days before brew day. You want to give it plenty of time to ferment out and settle. Then pitch the second starter wort batch first thing on brew day.

This way you get the growth from your first starter and still pitch at the height of yeast activity.

Thanks for the tips. I am going to start it tonight Wednesday. I think it will work out as I don't think I am going to be able to brew until Friday night.

Actually there are two school's of thought about this.

1) Do it a few days (up to a week in advance) let it fully ferment and rebuild up it's glycol reserves. Refrigerate pour off the spent wort leaving only enough to make a slurry of the yeast and then pitch.

2) Do it 24 hours or even the morning of the brew and pitch it when it’s reached high krausen that day.

Nobody here seems to talk about #2 saying that you need at least a few days for a starter.

I’m getting my info from the Pope himself Jamil Z. (I’ve been listening to his show a lot of late.) He says he usually does #2. He does #1 with lagers because the starters are fermented warm that and the fact that they’re so large they would produce noticeable off flavours.

<<starters reach their maximum cell density within 12-18 hours, which sounds about right to me. Some sources suggest that maximum cell densities are not achieved until 24 hours and others as much as 36, but the return on waiting that long is minimal. Let's just say that the bulk of the yeast growth is done by 12-18 hours. I like to pitch starters while they're still very active and as soon as the bulk of reproduction is finished, usually within 8 to 18 hours. This is really convenient, because I can make a starter the morning of the brew day or the night before the brew day and it is ready to go by the time the batch of wort is ready. There is no need to make a starter a week in advance, because I pitch the whole starter, liquid and all (up to a certain size of starter). Yes, you can wait longer and completely ferment it out so you don't have to pitch the liquid, but if you're going to do that, you should use a larger starter and allow the fermentation to go complete cycle over several days, chill, decant the beer and pitch just the yeast. If you're making a smaller starter, it is better to just pitch the entire active starter within about 6 to 12 hours of pitching the yeast into the starter.>>

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

Rudeboy

I have never given it more than 24 hrs and mine have always worked great. However, that's for only one step. If you are trying to make a huge starter, of course you would need to start a week or even more in advance, and step it up several times.

I just started using liquid yeast for my last 2 batches. I pretty much made my yeast starters using the info that I found lurking around on this forum...

I just picked up some 2,000 mL Pyrex flasks (so I can boil, chill, pitch and everything in the same vessel) made a mini wort, let it cool, pitched & waited 2 days. Poured off the "beer" swished it around and poured into my carboy. Odds are that the fermented beer in the starter wouldn't have contributed to any off flavors in the beer but why take that chance