How exactly do you "decant" yeast starters?

[Tankard]

I understand the reasoning, but how exactly do you decant the liquid? Do you just put a glass rod in the neck of the flask and pour out the liquid, leaving the solid stuff behind? I've never done a starter, so excuse the noobiness of this post.

[Evan!]

A glass rod? Nah. Just chill it down (cold-crash) so that as much of the yeast settles out as possible. Pour off the clearish liquid on the top (very carefully) into the sink, etc. Watch the stream as it exits the flask, and when you start to see it get cloudy, stop pouring. You really need to be careful not to disturb the yeast cake at the bottom. Anyway, once you've decanted as much clear liquid off as possible, you swirl the remaining yeast around to break it up and get it off the bottom, and dump that into your main wort. It's a good idea, though, to let it get up to fermentation temps before you pitch it though, because the thermal shock in tandem with the pressure shock of the dense wort will not be good for them.

[Tankard]

I just remember in chemistry class, we'd get an ernleymeyer flask and put this glass rod on the lip of the flask, and then we'd pour out liquid.

Thanks for the explanation. This sounds very screwupabble, for me at least, but I'll try and do this carefully.

[Ó Flannagáin]

I've never decanted, just pour the whole thing in

[mr x]

This sounds very screwupabble, for me at least, but I'll try and do this carefully. I think you'd have to try pretty hard to screw up the mechanics. It's basically like pouring a bottle conditioned beer. The important part is the sanitation aspect of making starters. I also like to taste the decanted beer, gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. RDWHAHB works for Charlie P., but it never really did much for me. lol