Aeration-to-pitching delay/stirring up cold break

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jsweet

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Okay, so...

Did a bigger boil than I ever have before, despite not having any sort of rapid cooling mechanism to speak of. After top-off, the wort was reading about 110F. I aerated it vigorously at the time.

That was maybe an hour ago. Now, one thing that is weird, I saw a cold break for the first time. At least, it sure looked like the pictures I've seen. But I didn't think I cooled it that rapidly. Maybe shaking the hell out of it right after adding the cold top-off water did it? :confused:

Anyway, after waiting an hour and seeing the temp fall to like 108, I decided to rig up a cold water bath. It's cooling in that now.

So my question is... should I aerate it one more time before I pitch it? How long is too long a delay between aerating and pitching? And is stirring up the precipitation that has already occurred such a big deal? It's probably going to be in the fermenter for 4 weeks, then maybe secondary after that, so maybe the precipitation right now doesn't matter so much as getting some healthy yeast?

(I'm also a little concerned I'm going to be underpitching, but there's no turning back now...)
(Hoping I'll actually get an answer at 2AM EDT... :/ )
 
I would aerate before pitching. If it is already in the fermentor then stir it up it will settle over a few weeks. It is better to be safe and aerate then to worry about it. It is only 11pm over here on the west coast. Why the concern with under pitching?
 
OK. I ended up pitching at 3AM, even though the wort was still around 88-90F -- way too hot for ideal, but I know it won't kill the yeast, and damn I needed to get to bed. Based on joel's reply I did end up aerating it one more time beforehand. My concern about underpitching (which may still prove to be a problem; we'll see where the SG is at in 2-3 weeks) is that the OG was 1.086 and I used a single smack pack of Wyeast 3944, no external starter. I fell into a fitful sleep with vague dreams about fermentation gone all wrong. (If anybody's figured out how to RDWHAHB while sleeping, let me know!)

The dogs woke me up 10 minutes ago to go outside, and lo and behold, only 3 hours after pitching, the krausen's already making its way up the blowout hose and there is lots of visible activity in the first few inches (and visibly spreading in the five minutes I've been watching it). There are big chunks of sediment clinging to the side from when I shook it up post-cold break, but as the yeast activity works its way down I can literally see it ripping chunks of it off the side and dropping them lightly down to the bottom. Woah, yeast is awesome.

So if any concerns remain, it's the possibility of off-flavors from the high initial pitching temp (not too worried, since judging by surface readings with my laser thermometer, it's almost down to temp already) or possibly a stuck fermentation from over-taxing my poor Belgian Wit yeast on this big beer. If the latter, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it; no use worrying about it right now.

RDWHAHB wins again. Though I am glad I asked this question - I think re-aerating immediately before pitching was the right call.
 
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