Crashing Yeast Starters

[wherestheyeast]

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed before.

I'm curious about cold crashing yeast starters; I've read that its common practice to cold crash & decant a starter prior to use;
Its also my understanding 'cold crashing' is common practice prior to boggling & that there is plenty of yeast in suspension for carbonation.

Am I misunderstanding the techniques here? If there is yeast remaining in the finished beer after cold crashing why would you want to cold crash & decant a starter?

 

[Pratzie]

U can cold crash it and all the yeast will form a slurry... separating them from the "beer" they made from the DME u put in to begin with. U can refrigerate for a few hours, then decant almost all of the beer. Bring it up to room temp and then when ur ready, swirl the little liquid left to loose then slurry and then pitch that into your fermenter. But to answer your question, some people feel that the beer from the starter could affect the taste of your wort so they don't like adding that to their fermenters. Others will bring the slurry back to room temp and add another batch of starter wort and continue to increase the amount of yeast cells. If u've ever used MrMalty.com, there is an option to see just how much slurry you need to pitch without the "beer" that was originally formed from that first starter batch

 

[steven]

You got me at boggling.
I can't comment on the yeast starter but,
You cold crash before bottling to get a clearer beer. There will still be yeast in suspension, so you can bottle condition.

 

[Gameface]

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed before.

I'm curious about cold crashing yeast starters; I've read that its common practice to cold crash & decant a starter prior to use;
Its also my understanding 'cold crashing' is common practice prior to boggling & that there is plenty of yeast in suspension for carbonation.

Am I misunderstanding the techniques here? If there is yeast remaining in the finished beer after cold crashing why would you want to cold crash & decant a starter?

There will still be some yeast left in the "beer" from a starter but the vast majority of yeast will be in the peanut butter-like slurry at the bottom. Especially true if it was cold crashed and kept cold for a day or two.

My understanding is that the yeast still in suspension are the lazy guys. Your premium troops did their job quickly and got to the bottom early.

 

[pelipen]

Because starter beer tastes like @$$. You might not want 2 liters of that in your beer. Depends on starter and wort size, probably composition as well. I always decant.

 

[zendog]

I used to make 2L starters, let them ferment out, chill and decant the beer. Been doing that for years, but for my last 5 batches I make a 1L starter the night before and pitch the whole thing. My ferments have been much stronger, finishing out faster and more complete and I taste no difference. I think cooling, warming and decanting may be introducing a selection phenomenon or killing some off. I've tried this on several WL ale yeast strains so far. I need more batch data to confirm my observations/hypotheses, but so far I'm stoked over my results!

 

[Desp]

I used to make 2L starters, let them ferment out, chill and decant the beer. Been doing that for years, but for my last 5 batches I make a 1L starter the night before and pitch the whole thing. My ferments have been much stronger, finishing out faster and more complete and I taste no difference. I think cooling, warming and decanting may be introducing a selection phenomenon or killing some off. I've tried this on several WL ale yeast strains so far. I need more batch data to confirm my observations/hypotheses, but so far I'm stoked over my results!

Have you tried chilling, decanting and then pitching cold? Worked much faster and stronger for me.

 

[pelipen]

My current process when starting from a fresh smack pack is, 1 liter on a stir plate. 24 - 36 hours max. into the fridge overnight for use the next day. This works very well for reasonably flocculant yeasts, and from what I read extended ferments on the stir plate are not necessary.

If I'm starting from older or smaller samples, or high gravity, adjust as needed. 2 liters wouldn't be unreasonable since it's easy to figure doubling.

I pitched my last batch cold. It woke up remarkably quick. Seems like there are a lot of opinions on this, but quite a few positive remarks. Maybe I'll try it again this weekend.