Beer Forum

For my last batch (an German Altbier), I made a 1L 1040 starter using White Labs German Ale / Kolsch (WLP029) on Thursday night, added .5L more wort on Friday night and pitched the whole thing in a 5 gallon 1054 wort late Saturday afternoon. I had activity in the airlock within a couple of hours and a nice krausen that night.

In the past, I have made the starter, let if sit in the fridge over night, take it out that morning of brewing to get to room temperature, decanted and pitched. Worked fine, but I noticed it sometimes took 12-18 hours to really get going. I know this is also dependent on the particular yeast strain.

This is the first time I have pitched the entire starter, fermented wort and all. I have been told that it won't change the taste much, but I guess we'll find out. Was that too large of a starter to pitch the entire thing?

no, not at all. the only time you really need to worry about decanting off the liquid from the started is when you're making very delicate flavored beers where the starter wort could have a flavor impact. for something like an alt you should be fine. if you were making a german pilsner or something lite like that you might want to consider decanting.

You probably see faster ferment times due to pitching an active starter vs. one that has just come out of the fridge cooled for 24 hrs. or so. I have no problem pitching an active quart/liter starter into my wort, but any more than that (2qt./L) needs to be decanted so it does not introduce off-flavors into a beer (plus the fact that you are adding a half gallon more of liquid).

Just don't ferment your starter at like 80F and you'll be fine with putting in the entire thing (unless it's a pale/light beer).