Pitching a starter when the wort has cooled to about 80.

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petep1980

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With the summer tap water not getting much below 66 it's a real chore to cool down below 80F. My last two batches I have said screw it to, and I toss the yeast in and throw the fermenter in my 66F basement. Now, I know this is royal RDWHAHB territory, but I just want to see if this is considered bad practice generally.

Please advise.
 
With the summer tap water not getting much below 66 it's a real chore to cool down below 80F. My last two batches I have said screw it to, and I toss the yeast in and throw the fermenter in my 66F basement. Now, I know this is royal RDWHAHB territory, but I just want to see if this is considered bad practice generally.

Please advise.

i've pitched three batches this summer for this same exact reason and they all came out fine. last week i bought a big round tub from lowes for 7 bucks that i'm going to start putting my kettle in with ice water while using the IC.
 
Danorocks method is great. Also, in the areas with warm tap water (mine is 85F in the summer), many of us use a "pre-chiller" -

easily built, its essentially a second immersion chiller - a coil of tubing placed in an ice chest filed with ice and water. It helps to drop a small pond pump in to keep the water circulating, and we're talking heavy on the ice, light on the water. You can even use rock salt to drop the temps a bit (like making ice cream).

Get your batch as cool as possible with your tap water, (assuming immersion or counterflow chiller) - then connect your pre-chiller such that the tap water gets cooled down even more before heading off to cool the wort.
In South Carolina summers, I can get my pitching temps to about 66F, then drop it into my fermentation chamber for the rest of the ride (62F).

Oh, and that 66F basement is great, but active fermentation can cause the temps inside the fermenter to rise as high as 10F, so it's possible you're hitting 74-76F during the most active days...
 
Well it's certainly not BEST practice, but I've done it a few times and it hasn't turned out bad yet. The key I think is to try and get it cooled down to an acceptable temperature before the yeast really starts to take off. But of course, if you're able to cool down somehow before pitching that's much better.
 
Put it in your basement first, let it cool off, and then pitch the yeast. Letting the wort sit overnight isn't going to hurt it if you were sanitary, and exposes the yeast to less temp swings.
 
I always try get temps where I want to ferment at before pitching, I may have to put them in the ferment chamber for a few hours, the same can be accomplished with an ice bath.


_
 
Just had this same issue and I took the time to get to fermentation temps, which for my WY 3333 was 66. Combination of a long wort chilling session (half hour?) and continually feeding ice to the sink around the outside of my kettle.

I put the fermenter in a tub with 2 powerade ice bottles that are changed out 2x per day and it maintains about 66F in a 70 basement room.

I'm hoping that by my next batch to be brewed in 3 weeks I can at least avoid all the hassle of trying to cool the fermentation down. Can have some cool mornings in Minny by then.
 
There was a thread were guys were talking of dumping it (hot) into a cube (HDPE plastic cube of almost exactly the same volume at your brew) and letting it cool itself in your fermentation chamber and then pitching the next morning.

I use a CFC and that gets me down to low 80s high 70s and then either let it sit for a few hrs in the fermentation chamber before pitching or sit the whole carboy in an ice bath.

Clem
 

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