Just brewed second batch

I just finished brewing my second batch of homebrew. Here are the details:

Cooper’s Stout

Brewed on February 5th, 2012

Used store bought spring water for everything. Added one gallon of water to pot, added three pounds dark dry malt extract and brought to a boil. Removed from heat and added Cooper’s Stout hopped LME. Added wort to bucket with three gallons of water in it, and topped off with approximately one and a half more gallons, bringing the total to approximately 5.5 US gallons.

Used Wyeast Slap Pack 1084 Irish Ale.

Fermented in 6.5 gallon Ale Pail bucket.

Original gravity of 1.048 prior to pitching yeast.


My question is this: Is there a chance that the temperature was too warm when I added yeast? The temperature was above the 78 degrees that my thermometer goes up to on my fermenter when I pitched the yeast, but from what I read, it said that it's better to go ahead and get the yeast added as opposed to sitting and waiting on everything to cool down to the preferred temperature. Any chance it was too hot and the yeast "died" or whatever? Should I wait it out for a day or two and if I don't see signs of fermentation, pitch more yeast? Or should I add more yeast now? It's only been two hours or so since I finished and pitched the yeast.

Also, do I need to do anything to correct the OG since I added three pounds of DME, or is it still accurate?

Thanks!

May have been a little warm, but it should be OK. Give it up to 24 hours and see what it is up to - again it should be fine. The 1048 OG is right for a Coopers brew (confirmed with Brewer's Friend).

So sit tight and relax - only a couple of hours in.

Cheers!

If you added 4 1/2 gallons of cool water to 1 gallon of boiled wort, your water temperature should have been below 100F. Most yeast can survive that temperature, but it is probably not optimal for flavors. You should probably cool it as soon as possible to the mid sixties for the cleanest flavor. High temperatures can cause the yeast to throw a lot of phenolic compounds and produce fusel alcohols.

If you measured 1.048, that was after you added DME? If so, that's your OG. It sounds about right for 3.3lbs of hopped liquid extract plus 3 lbs of DME in 5.5 gallons of wort.

Yeah, 1.048 was after adding DME. I just didn't know if there were any corrections that needed made to that reading.

And I'm getting a lot of action in my airlock right now, so I'm feeling better about the yeast and all. I didn't expect much of anything to be happening when I made this post, but I was just thinking about the temperature and figured I'd get some opinions.

Thanks jmprdood and cervezarara!

Well I've had crazy activity in my fermenter. A few hours after pitching the yeast, I started to notice some action in the airlock. The bubbles became larger and more frequent, and it really started going. Last night after the game, I checked it out and I had foam and beer pushing out through the airlock. I removed the airlock and cleaned it and planned to fashion a blowoff tube on it, but my hose didn't fit on the inside of the airlock. I've been keeping a close eye on the airlock and removing it and replacing it with a freshly sanitized one each time it starts to get a lot of build up. Not sure how long this will all last, but it's definitely got a lot going on now. I'm really encouraged by this, as my first batch didn't show near this much action.

mpenn35 said:

My question is this: Is there a chance that the temperature was too warm when I added yeast? The temperature was above the 78 degrees that my thermometer goes up to on my fermenter when I pitched the yeast, but from what I read, it said that it's better to go ahead and get the yeast added as opposed to sitting and waiting on everything to cool down to the preferred temperature. Any chance it was too hot and the yeast "died" or whatever? Should I wait it out for a day or two and if I don't see signs of fermentation, pitch more yeast? Or should I add more yeast now? It's only been two hours or so since I finished and pitched the yeast.

Also, do I need to do anything to correct the OG since I added three pounds of DME, or is it still accurate?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I pitched around 80-82 the other night and was slightly worried but then I got 3 days of airlock activity and banana smells. I think you'll be fine.