How Long Does Your Starter Sit Before Pitching?

[RLinNH]

I was listening to the BN a few months back, and I overheard Chris White's Wife discussing starter times and how starters should not be in sitting for more than 2 days(I am hoping I heard her wrong). Personally, take this week for example. I need to do a 3 liter starter for a 1.066 wort that I have planned for Sunday morning. I will do m y 300 grams DME/3 liters water on Weds. evening, and let the starter settle out. I will pour off all the liquid in the starter, leaving just enough to get all the yeast off of the bottom of my Flask. In essence, my starter will have been sitting around the house for 4 days. This process has been working for me for many years, and I am wondering why one would not want to give the starter time to settle out prior to pitching. How long does your starter sit around at room temps prior to pitching? Also, if for any reason I can not brew on a planned weekend, I place he starter in the kegerator for the following weekend.

 

[winvarin]

I have been working my way through a lot of the BN backlog on my commute to/from work. Do you remember which show it was on?

By "sitting", I can't imagine she meant an actively fermenting starter. I am betting she meant that once the starter had fermented through and the yeast have dropped, you'd want to get the starter in wort within 2 days.

Jamil himself has talked about making lager starters a week or more ahead of time in order to ensure a proper yeast count.

I regularly make a starter Wednesday night for a Saturday afternoon brew day. Most of my starters have dropped clear by sometime Friday. They sit where they are until Saturday afternoon when I pitch.

I'd bet her advice is to keep people from letting the yeast go dormant. Even though you'd be at proper pitching rate (i.e., minimal growth needed), a dormant yeast may still have to take time to wake up if it's been sitting a week or more. The shock to the dormant colony caused by throwing sleepy yeast into a sugar rich environment may have been what she was talking about

 

[duboman]

I usually get my starters going on Mondays so I javelin time to step up of necessary, with crashing and decanting for brewing on Saturdays or Sundays so all total my starters are around for a week, refrigerated when not actively stirring.

This process and schedule has created great beer with no issues

 

[grathan]

It's dependent on active fermentation which probably dependent on yeast amount. As soon as it slows considerably it goes in the fridge. yesterday's starter was 24 hour starter, some have gone 4 days.