Make wort, pitch yeast next day?

I was wondering if there would be any downside to brewing up a 5 gal batch of wort (allgrain) and pitching the yeast later, say 24hrs...48hrs...+
The only reason I thought of this was I was about to have a brew session and realized I didn't have any yeast for the weekend. I thought about brewing a couple batches anyways, one batch on Sat and one on Sun, then buying yeast on Monday and pitching. I decided to hold off until I had more info, would hate to waste all the precious wort. and time! LOL

the longer you wait the more risk of infection getting started

Infection is a risk but check out the threads on no-chill brewing... people do it all the time

No chill brewers do this a lot me thinks.

I don't do no chill but I have waited 24 hours for my fermentation chamber to cool my wort to pitching temps cause I was lazy. I've also experienced a few 36 hour lags before I started to make starters

Same thing me thinks?

No chill brewer here, and I do this every brew day. Just make sure the bucket stays totally sealed until you pitch.

Okay cool, I will research the no chill method. I would still want to cold crash the wort with my I.C. right? Of course, that sounds counter-intuitive to the method. ha ha.

jhubert said:

Okay cool, I will research the no chill method. I would still want to cold crash the wort with my I.C. right? Of course, that sounds counter-intuitive to the method. ha ha.

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Yea, it does defeat the purpose. You should just dive in and do them as straight no chill, just to see if you like it

Monstar said:

You should just dive in and do them as straight no chill, just to see if you like it

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+1 on straight no chill. You'll have the wort at pasteurization temps for longer if you no chill.

If you want to chill, place wort (after chilling) in fridge until your yeast is ready. Pull out and let rise to pitching temp when ready.

I'll pitch the next morning most of the time instead of dealing with recirculating ice water through my chiller just to save time waiting to clean up. I wouldn't wait more than 24 hours unless you did the no-chill correct, as in pouring in wort that's hot enough to pasteurize your container or leaving it in a pretty tight pot that it was boiled in with the lid. Don't try to no chill in a carboy (it will break) and you probably will melt the bucket.

I doubt there is reason for concern for either no chill, or chilling and pitching the next day. However doing a no chill might be best if you had a micro-filter to allow microb-free air into the container as the cooling wort draws in air.

Leaving the wort hot will definitely affect the amount of hops you will perceive in the final beer.

I found myself in this same situation once, except that instead of forgetting my yeast I accidentally dropped the growler containing my starter. So, I just drained the wort straight into a corny sealed it then rolled it around to make sure the near boiling wort killed anything in the keg. Beer sat for a week before I pitched any yeast and it turned out just fine.

Wouldnt you have to make sure you repour your wort or airate it in some other way before pitching?

I pitched the next day in the summer (When running the chiller down to pitching temp isn't going to happen with ground water temp). The only difference is after I chill, I transfer to the carboy, and try not to aerate, and then leave some sanitized foil on top of the carboy. I throw it in the to fermentation fridge to let it cool down over night to pitching temps, then aerate and pitch the next morning, or when I come home from work. No problems, except I forgot to aerate once, came out fine, and it was a 1.099 stout, used a huge starter.