Krausen on starter

[stosh]

I took my starter off the stir plate last night with the intention of putting it in the fridge overnight to cold crash, decant, and make a step up this am.

My three year old took my attention and the flask stayed on the counter overnight. There is a krausen on top with a nice bed of yeast on the bottom.

Can I still decant the liquid and make my step up starter with this yeast despite a krausen has formed (or what I think is krausen)?

Seems to me that it wouldn't matter if it were cold crashed or not. I always thought cold crashing kind of puts the yeast in a dormancy of sorts where keeping it at room temp might be a benefit for the yeast?

 

[TallDan]

It matters because there is a lot of good active yeast in the liquid. Cold crashing helps the yeast flocculate and come out of suspension. If you have a krausen, the starter wasn't done and the yeast is still floating around in there and working.

If you don't have time to cold crash and have a big enough flask, just use the whole starter in your next step.