[fistfullofhops]

I'm making 10g of Denny's Rye tomorrow morning. I started a 1g starter one week ago and it's just about done. Most of the Krausen has fallen and I've got a good amount of yeast on the bottom of the jug. Yeast is Denny's fav 50.

Should I toss the starter in the fridge tonight and then decant in the morning? Or try to decant without chilling? Or, just toss the lot into the fermenter?

BTW, I'm thinking about using a plastic paint mixer in a drill motor to aerate the chilled wort. Anyone done this before? I plan on putting a plastic bag around the drill motor so no foreign matter drops in the bucket.

[tommymorris]

Decant. That is 10% of the recipe. Might add off flavors. I decant by siphoning off the beer with a short price of tubing.

I always cold crash my starters but it does seem 90% of the yeast drops out of suspension with in 1 hour of taking the starter off the stir plate. So I am not sure the cold crash is necessary.

PS. You should have added some hops to the starter. You would have had a 12 pack of beer.

[fistfullofhops]

Doh! Next time I will add hops. Good idea!

[morticaixavier]

nasty, skunked, oxidized beer 

It's really hard to make good beer and a good small volume starter at the same time. The needs of the two objectives are too different.

[Stevie]

nasty, skunked, oxidized beer 

It's really hard to make good beer and a good small volume starter at the same time. The needs of the two objectives are too different.

I thought the same thing, but I am assuming this was not a stirred starter.

[fistfullofhops]

nasty, skunked, oxidized beer 

It's really hard to make good beer and a good small volume starter at the same time. The needs of the two objectives are too different.

I thought the same thing, but I am assuming this was not a stirred starter.

Correct. This was not stirred. I have a DIY stir plate but it throws bars if the bottom of the container isn't just right, and since I used a water jug it was going to be more trouble than what it was worth.

[morticaixavier]

nasty, skunked, oxidized beer 

It's really hard to make good beer and a good small volume starter at the same time. The needs of the two objectives are too different.

I thought the same thing, but I am assuming this was not a stirred starter.

Correct. This was not stirred.

well that's different then.

[tommymorris]

I was just joking about keeping the starter beer. But, a lot of people brew a 5G batch as a pseudo starter for bigger beers.

[klickitat jim]

There's another word for five gallon starter, I think it's call repitch or reuse, recycling. Something like that.

All of my brews are starters, till I get bored using that strain.

[ynotbrusum]

All of my brews are starters, till I get bored using that strain.

Agreed Jim.  So far my own record was about 20 repitches of WLP 800 - without noticeable drift.

[klickitat jim]

I've fallen in love with 1728. We'll see if I make 20 generations. Hope so

[fistfullofhops]

I just want to clarify that the paint mixer would be used on the finished wort after the brewing session. To me this seems like nothing but win. Please tell me if this is a bad idea.

[morticaixavier]

I just want to clarify that the paint mixer would be used on the finished wort after the brewing session. To me this seems like nothing but win. Please tell me if this is a bad idea.

it's fine. I used to do that all the time. They even sell them at homebrew supply places as 'mix stir'

[denny]

If you don't decant, I'll have to hunt you down....

[fistfullofhops]

Ha! Don't worry, I decanted. Brew day went well. I hit all my temps. No real surprises. A good day.

BTW Denny this was my first time using your cheap n' easy mash tun. Also my first batch sparge. It worked very well. I used one of those Coleman extreme coolers (blue, of course) and only lost 3*F in a garage that was 30*F. Mashed in at 154* and wound up at 151* after 75 minutes.