If a starter only has 5 hours to start, am I better off just to pitch into the wort?

[262andbrew]

I totally forgot to grab and pitch one of my canned starters last night and am planning on brewing tonight.

Planning on Kolsch ale yeast.

Brew - if I can get any sort of efficiency will be around 1.060 (but I am new at this and that might be overly optimistic).

What do you think, pitch early in a starter, or just throw it in the wort at 10:00 tonight when I finish up?

 

[Revvy]

I believe that even a short time starter is better than no starter at all. The yeast will have a few hours of wakeup time more than if you just pitched starterless. You'll be at least ahead of the game in terms of lag time.

 

[DKershner]

I believe that even a short time starter is better than no starter at all. The yeast will have a few hours of wakeup time more than if you just pitched starterless. You'll be at least ahead of the game in terms of lag time.

Make it small, like 1L at most. No point in having more than that since it won't get to em anyway.

Another option would be to seal up your fermenter and let the starter finish and THEN pitch. Slight chance of infection, but you would have the correct amount of yeast. Of course slight chance varies based on how sanitary your fermenter conditions are.

 

[262andbrew]

Done. Pitched. Hopefully waking up and getting revved.

 

[david_42]

Five hours will double the cell count, maybe more. Worth doing.