What to pitch from the starter?

[Moondoggy]

When the starter is ready do I pitch the entire contents or do I decant off the liquid and only pitch the slurry?

I have read that folks do it both ways and was wondering if there was any preference.

[Fast_Eddy]

It's your choice. The supernatant liquid in the starter has yeast in it. I only pitch the slurry because I don't want to add the flavors of the starter beer.

[mmmBeer...]

My starters are nothing but light DME and yeast so I pitch the whole thing. There is no way this starter could affect the taste of the beer.

[MARK123]

I do a big starter and I dump the whole thing and drop 1/2 gallon of water out of the recipe.

[Fast_Eddy]

Originally posted by mmmBeer...
My starters are nothing but light DME and yeast so I pitch the whole thing. There is no way this starter could affect the taste of the beer.

You don't brew many pilseners??

[ray m]

I do the whole thing, too. Like mmmbeer, my starters are just xtra lite dme & yeast. Doesn't affect a thing regarding color, etc.

[mmmBeer...]

Originally posted by Fast_Eddy
You don't brew many pilseners??

Not true pilsners as I don’t have the space in the fridge to set the fermentation temperature at 50-55* . I have used whitelabs pilsner yeast, the fermentation temp was around 65*. I am not sure that I would notice a taste difference from pitching 1.5 pints of starter into 6 gallons, when combined with the higher fermentation temp. I like the results I get even at the higher temp.

If you think I might get a better tasting beer by pitching just the slurry when combined with the factors above, let me know and I will try it!

[Fast_Eddy]

Originally posted by mmmBeer...
Not true pilsners as I don’t have the space in the fridge to set the fermentation temperature at 50-55* . I have used whitelabs pilsner yeast, the fermentation temp was around 65*. I am not sure that I would notice a taste difference from pitching 1.5 pints of starter into 6 gallons, when combined with the higher fermentation temp. I like the results I get even at the higher temp.

If you think I might get a better tasting beer by pitching just the slurry when combined with the factors above, let me know and I will try it!

Maybe here's the difference - I tend to make .5-.75 gallon starters - usually .5-1 cup slurry result. If I pitched all of it(the beer and slurry) into a 5 gallon batch then I be throwing in about 10-15% volumetric increase.

[mmmBeer...]

Okay! I can see how that would make a huge difference.