Did I pitch too high?

Yesterday the brewday went extremely well, and i'm just having a newb concern. I was able to cool my wort to between 78ish and 75 in roughly 20 minutes. I did an ice water bath then added an additional gallon of ice cold distilled water. splashed the wort into my primary bucket then added more distilled water until i reached 5 gallons. my thermometer was moving extremely slow at that point but it was definitely under 80 degrees. the primary felt neither cold nor warm to the touch so i decided to pitch my yeast.

i just want to make sure i didn't pitch too high. i don't think i did but some reassurance would be quite welcomed right now.

thanks

You are fine! Pitched mine in the upper 70's this week and it still took off nicely.

You should be just fine as long as it was under 80 when you pitched and were able to get the temp down below 70 fairly soon. If it stays hot during fermentation you may get some off flavors, but as long as it's in the 60-70 range once fermentation gets going you will be good to go.

yep its doin ok then i think its around 61 right now. no active bubbling yet, but there was some activity in the airlock. I have a 3 piece and it looks as though some water was sucked back through, but i've read that that is common before fermentation really kicks off.

You're fine. The yeast will live into the 90's, but that's not advisable b/c you'll get those 'jet fuel' flavors at high ferm temps. Yours sounds about right.

I'd get it up into the mid 60's if I could, though.

Your temps is fine.. but why are you using distilled water? Normal tap water has minerals in it that the yeast need. If you have sulfur water at home or something you should just get normal bottled water from the store.

i got the distilled water because i didn't want to boil up gallons to sterylize it. im not gonna need yeast nutrient now am I?

The yeast gets most of its nutrients from the malt, but I think it relies on. . . zinc is it? magnesium? . . . from the water in order to flocculate. Or something like that. Either way, the consensus seems to be that tap water or (normal bottled water if you're tap water's gross) is best.

Someone tell me where I heard that and what the actual facts are.

I've heard of getting off flavors if you leave your primary at higher temps to ferment, but are you all indicating that pitching the yeast at too high of a temp also results in off flavors? I thought you ran the risk of killing the yeast, but other than that, no flaws.

thx

so it took around 48 hours for active fermentation to kick in but now i'm as excited as a child on christmas. I'm working from home today due to the Ice / Rain storm in CT and about every half hour i run in to watch my airlock bubble. I sit there stupified for about 5 minutes then i go back to work....I'm super excited (if you can't already tell).

thanks for the reassurance and tips everyone!