Beer Forum

I will be brewing a stout next Saturday using WLP001. Recipe call for 3 vials. Instead i will make a 5 Liter starter (according to JZ's book). I plan on making the starter Wednesday, Thursday will put starter in fridge.
Saturday morning will decant and set out at room temp, then pitch later. Is 24 hrs enough time for yeast to grow? Is two days in fridge enough time for yeast to drop out? Will the cold temps effect the yeast? Just wanted some feedback on all my steps to make sure I'm doing this right. Thanks!

Rather than refrigerating your starter, perhaps you would consider leaving it out at room temperature and pitching at an optimum growth? I do not think that one day would be enough time at room temperature for the yeast to achieve this optimum. This brings up other questions; are you using a stir plate or are you shaking periodically or just leaving them to do as they will? Given your plan to pitch after 3 days you might be better off just letting it go until Saturday then decanting the excess beer fom your starter. I'd give the yeast more time to really go for it rather than stopping short. The other part to your plan that concerns me would be the thermal shock from chilling your starter then rousing it again to pitching temperature, in my opinion.

So much for my 2 cents,
Alan

If you need to Decant the beer due to the size of your starter then you should let the starter fully ferment(probably 3 days for a starter)...then Chill until brew day, Then you decant the beer on the top and then add in a small amount of wort to get the yeast active again, and they should be ready to go by the time you get your beer into the fermenter.