Pitching the morning after and lag time. Thoughts?

This time of year it takes me forever to get my ale wort below 90 degrees with my immersion chiller so I put my carboy into my fermentation fridge and wait till the next morning to pitch my yeast. Because of the extra time of doing it that way, visible fermentation is not apparent until 30-36 hours after brewing. Sometimes I get off flavors in my ale and I wonder if they are due to the long lag time. Pitching too warm gives me even greater off flavors. Do any of you brewers practice a morning after pitch? what have your experiences been with the delayed start?

Only if the condom breaks. JK. I used to do a delayed pitch due to similar issues of not being able to get the wort cool enough. Buy yourself a chill plate from kegcowboy and that will end your problems once and for all.

My tap water is 82-84 degrees this time of year so the plate chiller rapidly cools my beer to to a similar temperature. I don't want to fool around with ice and pumps so I just put the carboy into the fermentation fridge and pitch the next morning. I brewed 10 gallons Saturday, pitched the starter Sunday morning and within 12 hours a nice krausen had formed.

You should be fine, I'd just recommend always using a healthy starter to ensure there's minimal lag time after the cool-down.

I forgot to mention thatI generally use us-05 rehydrated.

If you have a sanitation issue, the off-flavors could be from a contaminant. Letting the wort sit, in and of itself, won't cause any problems.

I'm a big fan of using ice to drop the wort the last few degrees - I generally use the technique for lagers but if you have high ground water temperatures it might be a good idea for ales as well. Half a gallon of ice will drop 5 gal of wort from 90°F to ~68°F.

I frequently get an unpleasant, musty flavor and aroma from old US-05. Is the yeast fresh?

I cool almost all my lagers overnight, and this time of year, I have to cool my ales in the fridge for a few hours as well. Basically you are storing sterile wort until it reaches the appropriate temp. Since you haven't pitched, you aren't adding to lag time. Lag time starts from when you add the yeast.

So long as your sanitation, pitching rates, and aeration are good, you shouldn't have any problems by cooling overnight.

I had the same experience this weekend. I could only get the wort down to 75 using my immersion chiller. I contemplated placing the fermenter in the fermentation freezer to get it below fermentation temperature and then pitching yeast but I just pitched anyway.

I'm interested to know if there are any downsides to chilling the wort over an extended period in time in a sealed container (i.e. fermenter with airlock) and then aerating and pitching yeast.

If your sanitation is good, there are no issues.

I do the same thing in the summer for lagers. I also aerate in the morning just to make sure the yeast are getting the O2 they need.

I no chill brew most of the time, I pull the kettle off of the burner in the afternoon then put the lid on (the steam from just under boiling temp wort should be more than enough to sterilize the lid). I always have notty, us-05, and pacman washed from previous batches with a starter made two days before. The next morning it is usually down to 70 or 80 so I pour into my fermenter through a funnel/strainer, put it in the swamp cooler with an extra jug of frozen water and pitch my starter of yeast. My last batch had a lag time of 2 and a half hours