Yeast starter help

It is 9:13 cst and I am curious about the timing for a starter. I already have a 1 liter starter completed that I am considering adding another 1 liter to. The problem is that I would like to brew tomorrow (a 1.064 IPA) and figure to pitch it around 5pm or so. Does anyone think that it could finish off in 14 to 15 hours? I don’t want to add to this starter if it will have negative affects. Any thoughts?

My question would be why add to the starter? If you have a 1Liter starter and you are going to brew a 1.064 beer tomorrow -and that is all you are doing - I would leave it as is.

Mr. Malty says that I should have a 2 liter starter…plus it is going to be a 5.5 gallon batch, not a 5 gallon batch. Anymore thoughts?

The reason why I am skeptical is because Palmer says that you should wait 18 hours after hight krausen to pitch…just curious what others have experienced?

It depends on what you are pitching. Are you pitching the whole thing, or decanting the fermented beer off and pitching just the slurry? In general, you will get the best fermentations (less lag time and, in my experience, better flavors) by pitching yeast that are at high krausen. Depending on my starter size and the beer profile, I either pitch the whole thing or, if the starter is too large, I will let it ferment out, decant, and then put a small amount of wort back in the starter, so the yeast get back to high krausen. Then I pitch. The second way isn’t ideal, but I’ve found it’s a good compromise.

As to the original question, I think a half gallon starter (about 2 liters) sounds about right. If your starter isn’t finished by the time you are done brewing, there is no harm in waiting as long as your sanitation procedures are good.