Yesterday was my brew day for my Bier de Garde that I am fermenting with WLP 011 European Ale Yeast. Up until now, my SOP for starters was to make up an appropriately sized starter (per Mr. Malty) 48-72 Hours before the brew, let it ferment out, decant the starter beer, and pitch the cream. With this brew, it took the yeast almost 36 hours to get going - from what I've read typical for 011 - so it didn't have time to ferment out. Rather than risk increasing under-pitching and increasing my lag time, I decanted off about half of the 2.75 qt. starter and pitched the rest.
So far, I'm impressed with the results - I had slow bubbling within 3 hours of pitch and aggressive fermentation inside of 12 hours. This is definitely getting me to rethink when to pitch. My lingering question is how much starter beer is too much to pitch into a 5 gallon batch?