Starter question

[LarryC]

I put together a starter last night thinking it would be done in 24 hours and I'd be able to use it for my brew today. Not sure what the deal is but the starter is still cookin' - about a half inch of Kräusen right now. So I want to let the starter finish up but I'm not sure what to do with my wert. Should I just put it into the fermentation chamber or should I oxygenate it and leave it out until tomorrow?

Always a new question...

 

[MotorcycleMatt]

why not pitch it? I didnt think there was anything wrong with pitching at high krausen?

 

[LarryC]

It's almost 3 liters of starter so I need to let it chill out and then decant down to just the slurry...

 

[Revvy]

Actually pitching at high krausen is considered the best time to pitch a starter.

 

[LarryC]

Actually pitching at high krausen is considered the best time to pitch a starter.

OK, I get that, but would you pitch 3 liters of starter into a 5 gallon batch?

 

[lebucheron]

just crash it for an hour or two in the fridge, most should drop out for you to get that volume down.

 

[TheJasonT]

I will regularly allow the yeast in my starters to come back to full krausen before pitching. My lag times are usually under 4 hours when I do that.

Then again, I usually start a week ahead of time and build my starters up, crash them, decant, then put a wort of similar strength to my brew on top of the last step.

Also something I have been doing with harvested/washed yeast is that on the first step I will only crash for 2-4 hours then decant. I find that this helps remove the cells that aren't quite as flocculant as the others.