When I make starters I never decant. I just pitch the whole flask (1000ml). I’ve never had any problems and always get a good quick start. So the question is, how important is it to decant the starter before pitching?
Thanks in advance for your input!
It’s not critical in that you are not going to spoil a batch of beer. But you are putting a liter of bad tasting beer into what you hope is good tasting beer. It takes no time to decant and it’s not hard, so no reason not to.
The proof is in the starter. Take a taste next time then ask yourself if you want that flavor in your beer.
I pitch an entire 1.5L starter into 5.5 gallons of ale wort. I try to time it so I’m pitching the starter when it’s at high Krausen. I start it 12-18 hours before the estimated pitching time. This was recommended by a friend who got this advice from a brewer at a very successful craft brewery. I do intermittent shaking without a stirplate. If I’m making a light lager I chill and decant the starter because the size of an entire starter would significantly increase the volume in my fermentor and because I don’t want the DME starter wort discoloring a wort made from Pilsner malt.
Totally. But in fairness, taste any beer that has been fermenting for a day and ask if you want that… nevertheless, I decant 90% of the time or more.
i aways decant. you’ll find a great majority of folks on this forum do decant…reasons have been mentioned. biggest reason why i do-its not necessary to add the whole starter to be effective, and sub standard partially or fully fermented beer is not what i want in my batch.
having said that, if so inclined try it both ways and see which you like and what you do and don’t notice…you’ll have your answer and direction.
I only decant when the starter is bigger than 2 liters. Otherwise not necessary.
Welcome to the forum, slats! You will find that this is a place for great input from darn good Brewers. One thing that happens is that reasonable minds may differ, so you will find some things that are a clear consensus, where other things may vary by practice - often with good results regardless. What is consistent among the posters is the advice to try things out and do what works best for you - a wise brewer from Noti Oregon put that out there quite a while back and it holds true for many many Homebrew practices. Finally, you will hear that pro Brewers do it one way, but it is purely a function of size - they need to do it that way based on their batch size and functional limitations of their breweries, shelf life concerns, etc…at the HOMEBREW level, some of the pro techniques and processes are either inapplicable or unnecessary. Again, try it for yourself and see what works best for you - doing what works, is not extra work for no reason and fits your system limitations is always the right answer for you.
Best of luck (and I tend to decant, but I repitch slurries when possible).
It depends. If I have a 1.5 liter starter for an ale and am pressed for time I will pitch the whole thing, don’t seem to be any problems. If I am doing a lager and have a 5 liter starter, well that is 25%+ of the beer, and since my starters are not the same grain bill and usually no hops, I will not dilute the recipe that much with starter liquid.
What is the proper way to decant? I always pour it but loose yeast.
I cut an 18" piece of tubing. I suck on one end and carefully siphon into the sink. I loose very little yeast and siphoning takes 30 seconds or less. I soak the tubing in my starsan bucket first. I also usually cold crash the starter.
generally i just pour it off slowly.
Refrigerate for 1-3 days. That will cause the yeast to drop to the bottom of your starter vessel and make it easier to pour off the wort.
+1. Easy and Simple.
If I decant, I’ll do it this way. I prefer to have mine at full krausen with as active yeast as I can have. I assume that they will clean up any off-flavors from the starter fermentation during the conditioning of my beer. I generally don’t like the idea of providing yeast a great place to hang out and grow and then throw them in the cold. I’m guessing this puts some selection pressure on them and I might be getting less of the genetics of the culture that I want.
I reuse yeast a lot, which mean I am probably selecting the yeast that does best in my brewery, not necessarily the ones I originally paid for, or cultured up from a can of Heady Topper.
Yep, same here. All things equal, I prefer to pitch yeast and let the spent wort go down the drain.
+1 to chilling and settling the starter. However, I never pour off the spent wort after chilling and settling. That would disturb the yeast cake too much. I always siphon off the spent wort and avoid any disturbance of the cake in the process.
Since I blow filtered air into the starter flask head space during the starter production, I am left with that sanitized small air line that then serves as my siphon hose. By the way, never use an air stone during your starter production if you use a stir plate. All you need to do is keep an ambient atmosphere above the wort that can then exchange plenty of oxygen with the wort throughout the growth phase. On top of that, I found that using an air stone just promoted excessive foaming of the starter. Getting rid of the air stone solved all my problems!
So, I’m confused. I’ve read that you want to pitch the yeast from your starter at or near the end of the respiration and growth phase (high krausen) and before the yeast are well into the alcohol production phase so they are well nourished and ready to hit the ground running when pitched into the full batch to minimize the lag phase. If you decant the bulk of the starter wort first and to avoid pouring yeast down the drain then you need to either cold crash the starter so yeast go to sleep and settle out or let the yeast go to completion and then they floc out (this would take several days). Either way defeats the purpose of reducing the lag phase as yeast have to wake up again when pitched into your full batch.
This is another reason why I rarely decant, but I’ve done it both ways and they both work. As long as you have good cleaning and sanitizing practices, the lag time isn’t a big deal. I (like many homebrewers) have waited until the next day to pitch lager yeast so the wort would be at the desired temperature and have made excellent beer.
The other reason I rarely decant, other than what I stated in my previous post, is it allows me to decide to brew less than 24 hours in advance. With my job it is often hard to plan a brew day enough in advance to chill a starter for decanting. It’s just easier for me.
This is a great thread on the topic: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=20692.0
Out of curiosity, Martin, have you tried the pouring? I’ve never found it disruptive to the yeast cake, so I’m wondering what the differences are between our methods.