Using a yeast starter...

[Sharpie]

Ok, so this is probably a really stupid question but here it goes. When it comes time to add your starter to your wort, do you empty your entire starter into it or do you get rid of most of the starter and just use the yeast cake at the bottom?

 

[DMartin]

You can do either, but I prefer to pour off the liquid ("decant") and add fresh wort little by little onto the yeast cake, to let it become accustomed to the new environment, then pitch it one the yeast is well mixed in.

 

[bad67z]

Ok, so this is probably a really stupid question but here it goes. When it comes time to add your starter to your wort, do you empty your entire starter into it or do you get rid of most of the starter and just use the yeast cake at the bottom?

I try to make mine starter a couple of days early, cold crash for 12 hrs or more before pitching. On brew day decant off the beer, swirl and pitch.

 

[Calder]

People do both. I generally add the whole starter unless it's a particularly light beer that the starter wort might affect.

 

[Sharpie]

I try to make mine starter a couple of days early, cold crash for 12 hrs or more before pitching. On brew day decant off the beer, swirl and pitch.

Doesn't that cold crash defeat the purpose of making a starter since the yeast will go dormant?

 

[Unibrow]

Doesn't that cold crash defeat the purpose of making a starter since the yeast will go dormant?

I think the purpose of dormancy is to make all the yeast fall to the bottom. Then when pitched, they reawaken and do some damage!

 

[bad67z]

Doesn't that cold crash defeat the purpose of making a starter since the yeast will go dormant?

The idea is to pitch the proper amount of yeast. I take my starter out to the the refrigerator about the time I start my strike water. If it is a big beer 1.060 of higher I occasionally boil and cool 5 oz. of 1.040 wort to get this started. Jamil Z. states you can leave a starter @ refrigerate temp for a week and still expect a good fermentation without feeding the pitch.

 

[homebrewdad]

Doesn't that cold crash defeat the purpose of making a starter since the yeast will go dormant?

I made my first starter this week (Monday night). On Thursday, I put it in the fridge. I brewed on Saturday.

On brew day, I took the yeast out a few hours before brew time and decanted most of my liquid, then set it out to allow the yeast to warm back up.

This morning (about fourteen hours after pitching), my airlock got blown several feet away from my carboy, and I had a nice volcano of foam. I had to come up with a makeshift blowoff tube, since I didn't have a real one.

So, the tldr; version = no, the yeast do NOT go dormant.

 

[user 4295]

Most people who pitch the whole starter do so when the starter is at the height of it's fermentation. That can be difficult to plan a brew day around though. If you let the starter ferment all the way out, then it's best to cold crash it, let all the yeast settle out, decant off the spent wort, leaving enough to swirl the yeast back into suspension, and then pitch away when ready. This is especially true if you used a stir plate, as I certainly wouldn't want to pitch that nasty, oxidized spent wort into my beer!