Cold Yeast in a starter

Okay I taught my buddy how to make a yeast starter because I was going to be gone for work on the scheduled date that I  wanted the started made. He did everything right as far as I can tell except he took the yeast out of the fridge about ten minutes before he pitched it. I know this will not kill the yeast or anything. I want to get your guys feed back on what this will mean for a time frame and growth in the starter. It is a white labs english ale yeast. The OG of the start was 1.032. Thanks.

10 minutes before he put it in the starter?  It will be fine assuming the starter was room temp.  It will proceed as normal.

Yeah the starter was at 70 degrees when he pitched it. I guess what I want to know is should I expect a big extra lag time before it starts active fermentation? I am going to do a step up on this so I want to know how far back to push the second phase.

I wouldn’t expect a lot of extra lag time.  Don’t worry about it.

Nothing wrong with that.  Pitching yeast cold prevents it from starting to use its reserves before they’re needed.  Keep doing it!

I am still playing with my process a bit for making and timing my starters.  However, what works me now is to pitch my yeast cold.  I whirlpool chill using ice, so my wort gets down to 40-45 F.  This lets me dump the cold break before going into the fermenter.  I also crash my yeast starter in the fridge a day or two before brew day so that I can dump the liquid and just harvest the yeast.  Since both are cold, I just pitch and let them warm up to ferment temperatures together.  I have not noticed an increased lag time; if anything, the lag time is decreased.

Often with microbes, the temperature differential is as or more important than the absolute temperature. I believe them sensing increasing temperature over a wide range in a sugar rich environment impacts them more than whether you ultimately hold at 67, 68 or 69 F (or wherever you ferment) in terms of progressing through the lag phase and initial growth phase.