Yeast Starter vs Wort Aeration

[WortNinja]

If you could only pick to do one on you next batch, what would you choose and why.

Just pitch the vial but get your wort all nice and full of O2

or

Pitch a nice large health starter but not use any aeration equipment (you can shake the fermenter up all you want).

I would love to see what everyone feels comes first in order of importance

Wortninja

[bub]

Note there was not a NO PANTS option.... but I will ignore that...
B... all the way... not even close... I've just pitched a vial and done the "shake the piss out of it" method and it works fine
BUB

[Lars]

All take choice "b" Also. I just did a 10 gallon batch Sunday with a 2000ml starter, no O2 Fermentation went wild for 2.5 days and is now silent. I haven't taken a gravity reading yet, but my guess is that it is done!

[WortNinja]

Note there was not a NO PANTS option.... but I will ignore that...

My bad, option 3

or..

Pitch you pants to the ground a aerate your own equipment.

[BeerMan]

I would make it O2 rich and toss in the yeast. don't know if its better but I'm really lazy

[keggermeister]

i'd pitch the vial and add O2.
That is if it was 5 gallons... If it was 10 I'd grow a starter and shake shake shake.

[Speyedr]

Yup, I have to agree with the "it depends" option.

Assuming 5 gallons, if it's a lower gravity beer, say 1.045 or lower, I'd be OK with pitching a vial and adding lots of O2.

Anything higher and I'm doing a starter and shaking the piss out of it before I pitch.

My reason, assuming anyone cares, is that you can get enough O2 in there if you shake it enough, and it is way more important to pitch the right amount of healthy yeast.

Oh, and Wort Ninja's Avatar can beat up Bub's Avatar....

[jamilz]

I'm with Speyedr on this. Of course, it also depends on how you're making your starter, the size of the starter, etc, etc.