Decanting Starter (How To)

[trn]

This must be a dumb question, but I couldn't find the answer searching through other threads. I've probably been drinking too much homebrew on a Sunday afternoon . What does it mean to decant the starter - is it just chilling it, letting the yeast flocculate, and pouring off the liquid? Or does it involve siphoning the liquid off the slurry?

 

[rsmith179]

You got it! Just chill it down to allow the yeast to settle. Then, simply pour off the top liquid layer. I suppose you could siphon if you wanted to, but it's much easier to pour. One less thing to be sanitized as well!

 

[trn]

Cool. Thanks!

 

[mkling]

But do make sure you chill it if you are going to do this. Otherwise, you will pour off the least flocculant yeast and harvest only the most flocculant yeast. This can change the characteristics of your fermentation and your attenuation.

 

[bigbeergeek]

I'm a new convert to the school of siphoning! Old threads be damned! It takes but a few drops of iodophor in a sauce pot of water to sanitize 2 feet of tubing! I can siphon off all the starter wort right down to the yeast line with no risk of losing yeast... try it, it's great.

 

[pd230soi]

I tend to leave just enough liquid to enable me to swirl the yeasties around a tad and wake them up. I guess I was always concerned that some the yeast would stick to the inside of the beaker if I didn't leave a little liquid.

So I find just pour it off slowly (after cold crashing) to be just the ticket. Watch the neck carefully, but pour away.

 

[Yooper]

I tend to leave just enough liquid to enable me to swirl the yeasties around a tad and wake them up. I guess I was always concerned that some the yeast would stick to the inside of the beaker if I didn't leave a little liquid.

So I find just pour it off slowly (after cold crashing) to be just the ticket. Watch the neck carefully, but pour away.

Yep, that's what I do too. You could add some fresh wort to it, and stir it up and pour it out, but I just decant spent wort until I get a little bit of yeast coming up into the liquid, then stop. I thin swirl it all up to "loosen" the yeast cake and pitch that into my wort.

 

[pd230soi]

I thought about that too, but it just seemed to be one darn step too many.