Pitch today or pitch tomorrow?

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wi_brewer

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Brewing AHS's Hopdunk today, will have a 1.100 OG. Using White Labs California Ale yeast, made a 1L starter last Thursday and stepped it up to 2L on Saturday. Put it in the fridge last night so the yeast would settle. There is a nice layer of yeast on the bottom of the flask this morning, but I can see that there is still a lot of yeast in suspension. I plan to decant and pitch the slurry as I do not want to pitch such a large starter.

With such a high gravity beer I want to pitch as much yeast as I can. Should I just pitch what has already settled? Or should I wait until it all settles and pitch it then, possibly tomorrow? Is there any issues with chilling the wort this afternoon and having it sit overnight with no yeast?

Just hit a boil, so there is no waiting to brew until tomorrow!

Thanks in advance.
 
My guess is that it will probably be a few hours before your wort is cool enough to pitch yeast. Let the yeast continue to settle out in the fridge then decant and pitch it when the wort is ready. Let the yeast warm up a bit after decanting until it's within 10 to 15 degrees of the wort temp. so you don't shock the yeast.

The general recommendation is to pitch yeast ASAP to reduce the chances infection. But for what it's worth, I sometimes let my wort chill overnight before pitching yeast and I haven't had a problem yet. Just make sure you have excellent sanitation if you're going to try this.
 
If I had to chose in this situation, I'd pitch the whole starter. 2L isn't that much in a 5 gallon batch, so I'd pitch the whole thing rather than letting it sit out overnight waiting to decant.
 
wi_brewer said:
Brewing AHS's Hopdunk today, will have a 1.100 OG. Using White Labs California Ale yeast, made a 1L starter last Thursday and stepped it up to 2L on Saturday. Put it in the fridge last night so the yeast would settle. There is a nice layer of yeast on the bottom of the flask this morning, but I can see that there is still a lot of yeast in suspension. I plan to decant and pitch the slurry as I do not want to pitch such a large starter.

With such a high gravity beer I want to pitch as much yeast as I can. Should I just pitch what has already settled? Or should I wait until it all settles and pitch it then, possibly tomorrow? Is there any issues with chilling the wort this afternoon and having it sit overnight with no yeast?

Just hit a boil, so there is no waiting to brew until tomorrow!

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

I would Decant the liquid off, bring the yeast to room temp, add about 1L of the Wort from your brew to it(cooled of course), shake well, give it an hour or 2 to take off, then pitch the whole thing into your cooled wort.
 
If there is not much left in suspension, decant and go with it. The yeast you are not giving it are the ones that don't floc well.

If there is still a substantial amount in suspension, swirl it up and pitch the lot. The earlier you pitch, the better.
 
Thanks for the input guys (and gal)...there was still quite a bit in suspension so I just pitched the whole 2L.
 

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