Starter in the fridge

After making a starter, my brew day unfortunately was pushed back 1 week. So I had to store my starter in the refrigerator. A day before I brewed, I pulled it out and let it warm it up to what would be my pitching temp. Fermentation started quickly and is still going strong.

My question is: Is this an ok practice? I like the idea of making a starter for my batches. I just wanna make sure I am not just better off using a smack pack or 2 or if it is better to make a starter even though I have to store it for a short period of time in the refrigerator.

Another question is: Should I decant the wort off of the top and store yeast under clean (boiled and cooled) water? Or is it ok under the starter wort.

Thank you in advance.

That’s fine. That starter would be pitchable for a month without an extra step. As for storage, after it’s fermented, it’s beer and yeast stored under it will keep for a long time.

I pour off the supernatant before pitching.

Up to 2 weeks in the fridge is a good rule of thumb.

For a 5 gal batch, if your starter is 1L or smaller you can dump it all in. If your starter is bigger than 1L then decant off the liquid before pitching. 1L into 5 gal is small enough to not have any effect on the flavor of the beer. Any bigger though and you could possibly start impacting the flavors.

FWIW I agree w/ TG re 2 weeks being OK but disagree with a previous poster that beer is a good medium under which to store yeast for periods of 30 days and more. There’s nothing of nutritive value in fully fermented beer and even if refrigeration slows the yeast’s metabolism it doesn’t suspend it altogether. Totally unfed, it will die IMHO (unless frozen on a slant but that’s another story and even then you’d use agar or something I think), and even if it doesn’t all die (it won’t), what remains viable will have been stressed (all IMHO, but watch how long a 30 day refrigerated-in-beer sample takes to rouse, in a new starter).

From my experience, yeast will keep a long time under beer. This is from practical experience, not my opinion. I’ve been able to revive yeast over 4 months old in one step that was stored in the fridge under beer. For this particular situation, your refrigerated, week old starter, will be able to ferment your batch of beer. No worries.

:cheers: