Yeast Starter Temperature

[MonsieurBadgerCheese]

Good Evening,

Should a yeast starter (ideally) be made at the temperature at which the beer will be fermented?

Regards,

MBC

[IPA]

You can make the starter at a slightly higher temperature but cool it to the correct one before pitching. Guidance can be found on the Whitelab website.

[Jim]

For dried yeast the manufacturers' recommendation is usually 30 - 35C to rehydrate (which always seems high to me) but for liquid yeast, as IPA said, slightly higher than the brew is fine.

[ciderhead]

In general terms you need your wort plus or minus 3 degrees to avoid thermal shock, you can get significant kill rates from stress and can throw off undesirable flavour profiles created in those first critical 48 hours.
I have read about cold into warm wort being ok. I’m not convinced. You’ve spent 5 hours brewing, it’s another variable shouldn’t be too hard to minimise it.

[HTH1975]

You want to ‘train’ your yeast to work at the temperature you’ll be fermenting at. Following the recommended temperature range is your best best. I always like to ferment at the higher end of the range to get some esters adding to the flavour.

20-24C for most British beers should be fine.

[MonsieurBadgerCheese]

Thank you very much for all of the replies and advice.

MBC.

[Carnot]

I always use a starter made with honey as my signature. I usually get the starter going 24 hours before pitching at around 25 -30 deg C and aim to pitch at 20-25 deg C. Its been a bit trickier of late with all the warm weather. The fermenters usually settle at something like 20-22 deg C.

[McMullan]

The optimal temperature for yeast (S. cerevisiae) growth is about 30ºC. It doesn’t ‘train’ yeast cells to deviate from their fermentation temperature ranges. That kind of selection takes considerably more time (years). I bet some have been happy with how quick their starters have finished during this heat wave. At lower (fermentation) temperatures, growth takes longer. 72h vs 24h, in some cases.