Yeast starter question

Greetings,

Quick question...I did up my first yeast starter last night around 8pm and was planning on brewing a saison today, probably pitching around 1pm. I made the starter with 150 grams of DME/1500ml of water, pitched the yeast from the smack pack, and stirred it frequently before hitting the proverbial hay (maintaining sanitary conditions and using a sanitized foam rubber stopper). I was wondering if it was alright to pitch the entire contents of the flask into the primary, or should I chill it while I'm brewing, let it come back to room temp, then decant the liquid and pitch the slurry? I'm thinking I should have created the starter earlier, but I'm flying to DC tomorrow and need to brew today.

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions/criticisms/rants appreciated.

It's really up to you, some decant, or some just swirl it all in. One factor to consider is whether or not the "starter beer," the liguid on top smells sour or not. Often, especially in the summer it may sour in only a few hours. Some folks add a hop pellet as a preservative/preventative measure. The couple of ounces of sour beer wont really affect the taste of your finished product (unless maybe you were brewing an extremely light tasting beer.) It's really up to you.

Another factor is whether or not the yeast is a low flocculating yeast and there may be a lot still in suspension. The "beer" will be cloudy rather than clear-ish. If it's a witbier or hefe yeast for example it might be better just to swirl and pour it all in, you'll get the max number of yeast cells that way.

My starter flask is huge and often I will build up a starter over a few days and end up with 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of "beer" in it. If the yeast has pretty much flocculated I will, if I have time cold crash it, but even if I don't I will carefully pour off all but about 2 cups of the liquid, then swirl the remainder to re-suspend the yeast and dump it in my fermenter.

Dump the whole thing in. You don't have enough time to properly decant it. To decant the liquid you should wait for the starter to fully finish fermentation (24-48 hours). Then put it in the fridge and wait for all the yeast to fall to the bottom. (12+ hours). Anything less and you risk tossing out a bunch of yeast with the liquid.

PS: Use tin foil as a cover for your starter and it will get more oxygen. Oxygen is very important for yeast growth.