Conan starter; To decant or not to decant, that is the question...

[youngdh]

Will 800ml of starter wort fermented at 68-70F into 2.5G HT clone be detrimental to the finish product?

If I refrigerate the starter tonight, pull out of fridge in the morning, decant and allow to warm up prior to pitching late Sat afternoon will I be tossing out the majority of my healthy yeast given Conan is very slow to clear?

I've read various threads on the "to decant or not to decant" question and come away with mixed opinions from those posts. I've also read that Conan takes weeks at refrigerator temps to settle out and that the last of the yeast to settle are the stronger more robust cells. I'm brewing NB's HT clone tomorrow, 1/10/15, scaled down to 2.5G (I do small batches). Here is where I am today:

I kicked off a 1.4L ~1.040 starter wort (intend to save 600ml) Wens evening at 10p on a stir plate from a 1 mo old (use by date is 3/1/15) vial of Yeast Labs VT Ale yeast (Conan strain). It hit high krausen about 18-20 hours post-pitch. The attached photo is at ~36 hours (this morning). My plan is to keep 3-half pint mason jars of the starter in the fridge for future starters and pitch the remaining starter (~800ml) into my 2.5G HT clone Sat evening.

 

[m00ps]

Conan has always taken a while to clear for me. I;ve used it about 15 times now and I just make the starter a day ahead of my usual brew schedule to account for it. Definitely save some. I;ve found the attenuation goes up with later batches

 

[trentm]

The bible ("Yeast") says if the starter is less than 5 percent of the beer volume, it's OK to pitch all the starter liquid. So if you are doing a 19000 ml (~5 gallon) batch, your 800ml starter is 4.2 percent of the batch. "Yeast" also talks about the importance of the the late flocculating cells as the most attenuative.

 

[youngdh]

The bible ("Yeast") says if the starter is less than 5 percent of the beer volume, it's OK to pitch all the starter liquid. So if you are doing a 19000 ml (~5 gallon) batch, your 800ml starter is 4.2 percent of the batch. "Yeast" also talks about the importance of the the late flocculating cells as the most attenuative.

I'm doing a 2.5 gallon batch so will be in neighborhood of 8%

 

[edroberts]

NBC decanted Conan after he started ...

sorry... couldn't resist...

 

[trentm]

I'm doing a 2.5 gallon batch so will be in neighborhood of 8%

Well, I guess that makes it more of a dilemma. Maybe give it a smell and taste test. It's not going to smell or taste great but if it's not too offending, consider pitching the whole thing. For what it's worth, I used to pitch an 8 percent* of total volume starter for my Belgian ales without noticing any off flavors. That said, the Belgian strains I use seem to produce a relatively pleasant starter.

*After gaining the ability to count cells, I have realized I can reduce my starter volumes by 50 percent.

 

[youngdh]

Well, I guess that makes it more of a dilemma. Maybe give it a smell and taste test. It's not going to smell or taste great but if it's not too offending, consider pitching the whole thing. For what it's worth, I used to pitch an 8 percent* of total volume starter for my Belgian ales without noticing any off flavors. That said, the Belgian strains I use seem to produce a relatively pleasant starter.

*After gaining the ability to count cells, I have realized I can reduce my starter volumes by 50 percent.

I thought I'd post what I ended up doing this past weekend.

After harvesting half of the starter volume I went ahead and moved my flask into the refrigerator the night before I needed it to see how much the Conan would clear. It actually cleared very well, but, to ensure I didn't dump healthy yeast I only decanted about half of the liquid above the settled yeast leaving 600 ml. I smelled and tasted the starter "beer" and it smelled/tasted like bread with no obnoxious flavors so I swirled up the settled yeast and dumped the remaining 600 ml into my 2.6G wort. Fermentation was rolling within 12 hours and I was at high krausen within 18-20 hours post-pitch. Krausen dropped after 2 days but still getting a steady bubble rate through my blow off tube. I'm doing a ramped fermentation schedule. I held the wort at 70F until active fermentation started and then dropped temp to 64F with a ramp up to 68F over 3 days. I plan to hold at 68F 3 days and then ramp up to 72F to finish up until I get a steady FG reading.