Covering Your Yeast Starter

I'm currently creating a yeast starter, putting it on a stir plate for 24 hours, then covering with a cloth or a t-shirt. Is there any benefit to keeping it out of light? There are no hops so I wouldn't expect any photochemical reactions (obviously with iso-alphas) but I'm not sure...love to hear anybody's thoughts on this.

 

make mine in a box but more for temp control than light not too worried about light. used to make them on the kitchen counter. Never had a problem if your worried about it a lot you could always chill and decant most of the beer just adds time/days to starter

 

I cover mine with a sanitized piece of aluminum foil. I think cloth would have a greater chance of harboring bacteria. I leave my starters on the stir plate for 24 hours, then put them in the refrigerator for a day or two until the liquid clears and the yeast forms a cake on the bottom. I let it warm up to room temperature while I'm brewing, then pour off as much liquid as I can without disturbing the yeast cake. Then I put some cooled wort in the flask, swirl it around to get the yeast in suspension, then pitch.

 

I forgot to mention that the cloth would probably be OK if you soaked it in Star San or something. I just prefer aluminum foil.

 

I was thinking he was meaning to keep the light out.. similar to throwing a tshirt over your carboy during fermentation. I've never worried about covering my starters and just have them sitting under a cabinet on my kitchen counter. But I don't see any way it could hurt it to keep out of the light....

 

Yeah you're right. It couldn't hurt, but supposedly beer gets skunked when it has hops so it probably isn't helping much. Off-flavors are less of an issue if most of the starter is decanted.
Then again you could cut out eye holes so the starter looks like a miniature ghost, which is something I would do for entertainment.

 

I've never bothered to cover my starter flasks.
But I decant all but just enough "beer" to turn the cake into pourable yeast, and I'd imagine diluting the remains (half cup more or less?) in five+ gallons of wort would bury any off-notes - if they occurred (never noticed in all these years)...

Cheers!

 

Yep, that's why I dump out almost all of it and add fresh wort, to minimize the chance of noticeable off-flavors. Honestly idk if it really makes a difference, but it makes me feel better. Plus I'm doing 2.5 gallon batches at the moment, so there's less beer for it to be buried in.