Covering Your Yeast Starter

I'm currently creating a yeast starter, putting it on a stir plate for 24 hours, then covering with a cloth or a t-shirt. Is there any benefit to keeping it out of light? There are no hops so I wouldn't expect any photochemical reactions (obviously with iso-alphas) but I'm not sure...love to hear anybody's thoughts on this.

make mine in a box but more for temp control than light not too worried about light. used to make them on the kitchen counter. Never had a problem if your worried about it a lot you could always chill and decant most of the beer just adds time/days to starter

I cover mine with a sanitized piece of aluminum foil. I think cloth would have a greater chance of harboring bacteria. I leave my starters on the stir plate for 24 hours, then put them in the refrigerator for a day or two until the liquid clears and the yeast forms a cake on the bottom. I let it warm up to room temperature while I'm brewing, then pour off as much liquid as I can without disturbing the yeast cake. Then I put some cooled wort in the flask, swirl it around to get the yeast in suspension, then pitch.

I forgot to mention that the cloth would probably be OK if you soaked it in Star San or something. I just prefer aluminum foil.

I was thinking he was meaning to keep the light out.. similar to throwing a tshirt over your carboy during fermentation. I've never worried about covering my starters and just have them sitting under a cabinet on my kitchen counter. But I don't see any way it could hurt it to keep out of the light....

Roadliner said:

I was thinking he was meaning to keep the light out.. similar to throwing a tshirt over your carboy during fermentation. I've never worried about covering my starters and just have them sitting under a cabinet on my kitchen counter. But I don't see any way it could hurt it to keep out of the light....

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Yeah you're right. It couldn't hurt, but supposedly beer gets skunked when it has hops so it probably isn't helping much. Off-flavors are less of an issue if most of the starter is decanted.
Then again you could cut out eye holes so the starter looks like a miniature ghost, which is something I would do for entertainment.

I've never bothered to cover my starter flasks.
But I decant all but just enough "beer" to turn the cake into pourable yeast, and I'd imagine diluting the remains (half cup more or less?) in five+ gallons of wort would bury any off-notes - if they occurred (never noticed in all these years)...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

I've never bothered to cover my starter flasks.
But I decant all but just enough "beer" to turn the cake into pourable yeast, and I'd imagine diluting the remains (half cup more or less?) in five+ gallons of wort would bury any off-notes - if they occurred (never noticed in all these years)...

Cheers!

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Yep, that's why I dump out almost all of it and add fresh wort, to minimize the chance of noticeable off-flavors. Honestly idk if it really makes a difference, but it makes me feel better. Plus I'm doing 2.5 gallon batches at the moment, so there's less beer for it to be buried in.