Pitch entire starter or cold crash (48 h starter)

[kangabrew]

Hello,

I will only have roughly 48 h time to ferment my starter. I want to cold crash it, but I fear I might not have the time to that. The plan is to let the starter ferment for 24h then cold crash it for 24h. Would I be better off letting it ferment for 48 hours and pitch the whole starter instead?

The beer I will brew is a Kölsch (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=33548)

Batch size: ~3 gallons
Starter size: 1 L according to mr malty.

 

[stratslinger]

2 questions going on here:
1) How long do you need to leave a starter to reach full efficacy? I saw an interview a couple years back with Chris White where he said a properly prepared starter (1.040, not massively oversized, maybe on a stirplate - but he didn't really specify the stirplate) is done in about 24 hours. Yours is not by any means oversized, if the yeast you pitched into it were relatively healthy, I'd expect to see that starter done after 24 hours tops.

2) Pitch a full starter or cold crash, decant, pitch? I used to be firmly in the crash/decant/pitch camp - but I just recently did a starter where I did not have time for that process. It was a 1.5L starter in a 5 gallon batch. I pitched after about 24 hours on the stirplate. I've never seen a shorter lag time, and only rarely seen as healthy a ferment. 1 liter in 3 gallons _should_ have about the same flavor impact as 1.5L in 5, and I just kegged this beer last night and the flavor is great. I think I'll be timing things to pitch this way going forward, unless it's a truly massive starter (like for a big lager, for instance).

 

[eadavis80]

I'd probably pitch the whole thing. If I have time to decant, I do, but I've also pitched entire starters and honestly, I can't tell a difference. I guess I just decant because I fear that pouring in the starter wort isn't the best thing to do, but - like I said - it's probably more psychological than anything. I've made good beers both ways.

 

[kangabrew]

Thank you for your answers.

It's like you say, probably only psychological
So I'll just pitch all of it after 48 hours then. Should I use extra light DME?

 

[eadavis80]

That's the extract I use for all my starters with the thinking being it's as "flavor-free" as possible.