How much yeast do we lose when we decant starters?

Any studies or personal experience with this? I just stepped up to a 1200ml starter and after crashing in the fridge there was only a thin layer of clear liquid. 75% of the remaining liquid looks to have yeast still in suspension and then a small yeast cake on the bottom. Does the crashing need more than 24 hours? Should you just not decant low to medium flocculent yeast starters or just a longer crashing time?

I'm very interested in this too. My starters always taste REALLY unpleasant and I make a lot of 1 gal and 1/2 gal batches the flavor of which is often affected by the foul tasting starter, but I don't decant for fear of losing good yeast.

Longer crashing will definitely clear it up more, but that's not going to make a difference in your beer. Honestly, I would rather get rid of the stubborn, less flocculant yeast so that the beer clears better, but that's just me. Bottom line, you're not loosing much yeast.

Bigelow92 said:

I'm very interested in this too. My starters always taste REALLY unpleasant and I make a lot of 1 gal and 1/2 gal batches the flavor of which is often affected by the foul tasting starter, but I don't decant for fear of losing good yeast.

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Start decanting. Especially if it's affecting the flavor of your beer. If you're that worried about it, make a larger starter.