Bigger yesat started = shorter primary?

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hockeygreg44

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Hey everyone, I started brewing a little over a year ago and was a primarily an extract brewer and finally made the leap to AG. I've had few issues with my 1st 2 AG batches, but I love it so far. My question is that if I made a bigger yeast starter, decant after a day or 2 and build up 1, 2 or more times to get a larger yeast slurry and then pitch that, will that decrease the amount of time that I will need my brews in primary fermentation?

Thanks in advance.
 
If you pitch a starter much larger than you need, then you will decrease the lag time- the initial phase where the yeast are multiplying. But after that the fermentation should be the same. So yes, you would save a little time- maybe 18 hours or so.
And I believe there can be some flavor issues when you greatly overpitch, I believe I've seen it discussed in the 'Yeast' section.
 
Researching the limits of this right now...I have a batch of yeast I've been rinsing and reusing every week - it's going into it's eighth run today. By conservative estimate I have a quart of yeast which I am adding to a starter.

I realize that there has to be some dead yeast and hops trub in that quart - my rinsing technique cannot be perfect - but the last batch of 1.060 wort this yeast came from went from kettle to keg in four days and turned out great.

I'm wondering where overpitching comes into the picture.
 
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