The starter worked out great! I have a very active airlock this morning and there is a ton of activity in the beer its self as well. I've seen the light!!! Starters are the way to go!!!! Thanks for the tips and advice yesterday.
Matt
With that size starter, as stated before, you probably didn't accomplish as much yeast growth as you intended. I forget the details, but I believe pitching one pack of yeast into a 2 liter starter will get you double the population, with the reproduction phase typically being finished by 12 hours, depending on how you aerated -- continuously stirred on a stir plate gets you more cells than aerating the wort and letting it sit, with regular swirling in between.
What you *did* accomplish is waking up the yeast and getting them active and ready to go -- as shown by your fermentation. They woke up, started eating an building their stores, and I'm sure a little procreation occured ...... then saw all that food available when you pitched them into the fermenter.
The rational behind pitching the whole starter -- if the yeast hasn't finished fermenting and dropped out, you've got active yeast in suspension and you would select for the early flocculators and a smaller quantity of yeast. The rationale behind letting the yeast drop out and decanting is that a) you don't want to add a large quantity of wort that is different form your batch diluting or altering the flavor and b) if you are regularly aerating or oxygenating your starter, there may be off flavors in the starter that you are adding to your batch.
-- Scott