Yeast starter question

[Mencken]

So I did a starter from some Bell's Beer bottles. Seems to have caught nicely. I did it with half a quart of water, half a cup of DME, and some hops, boiled for ten min, then cooled. That was Monday night. Today, I wanted to re-up the starter, so I did the same mix, and added that to the starter. It's going great right now, has a good layer on the top.

My plan is to brew on Friday. My question is, what now? Do I just pitch the entire contents in the cooled wort on Friday? Should I pop it in the fridge tomorrow morning, so I can get the yeast to settle to the bottom of the starter, then dump out the extra liquid before pitching the yeast?

 

[Tlylebrew]

Depends, like everything else really.. Most will say add the beer to your wort, but Whitelabs says anything 2-liters or bigger into a 5-gal batch you should decant the beer before adding.

Really up to you probably be fine either way.

 

[Mencken]

Well, it'll be 1 quart less 10 min of boil off. So definitely not up to 2 litres. Maybe I'll just pitch it.

 

[ajf]

You can do either. Adding the whole 1 qt starter is not going to affect the taste of the beer noticeably, and will give you the highest cell count. You could chill, drain off the clear wort and pitch the slurry, but you would lose some of the yeast. I always pitch the entire starter if it's less than about 3 pints, or chill and pitch the slurry if it's larger.

-a.

 

[Mencken]

That's a good standard. Definitely want as much yeast as possible, given that it's a Frankenstein yeast, resurrected from a bottle

 

[phatuna]

search yeast starter on the search tab, much debate about technique

I just pitched the entire starter into my last batch. starter was about 2 pints water, 5oz. LME, white labs California Ale yeast - with no problems. Pitched starter after about 36 hours. Took about 8 hours after pitch to start bubbling away. good luck