Been brewing for about two years now and until I made my first starter every single batch has had that oxidized tasting homebrew twang. The difference was night and day. So I have this theory floating around inside my beer infused brain. If you underpitch you are over stressing your yeast to reproduce and they are not able to consume all the O2 that you shook or blew into your wort.
Does this make sense to anyone or is it possible for yeast to consume all the oxygen in your wort regardless of how little you pitch?
I should add, I've gone through just about every other step of the process to weed out problems. I brew all grain, hit my temps pretty regularly, my efficiency is normally in the mid 70's, I ferment nice and cool in a temp controlled chest freezer, and my sanitation practices are good. I'm very careful not to shake my wort around and the only time it is exposed to air is during bottling. The black IPA I made a starter for is friggin fantastic, so I think it's pretty safe to narrow it down to the use of a starter.
Does this make sense to anyone or is it possible for yeast to consume all the oxygen in your wort regardless of how little you pitch?
I should add, I've gone through just about every other step of the process to weed out problems. I brew all grain, hit my temps pretty regularly, my efficiency is normally in the mid 70's, I ferment nice and cool in a temp controlled chest freezer, and my sanitation practices are good. I'm very careful not to shake my wort around and the only time it is exposed to air is during bottling. The black IPA I made a starter for is friggin fantastic, so I think it's pretty safe to narrow it down to the use of a starter.