yeast pitch temp

Making a sierra nevada clone. Recipe said add yeast below 80 F. Waited 9 hours and had to go to work and wort was only at 84 F. I pitched it anyway hoping for the best. Did I just destroy my yeast? Thanks, Robert

bobbrewster said:

Making a sierra nevada clone. Recipe said add yeast below 80 F. Waited 9 hours and had to go to work and wort was only at 84 F. Did I just destroy my yeast? Thanks, Robert

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Did you try to chill the wort? 84 is very high to be pitching at.

Sounds like you need a wort chiller bad...Leaving your beer for 9 hours to cool did more harm then pitching the yeast at 84.

or, at least get a good ice bath going. i can chill my wort to 65 in about a 1/2 hour. if your yeast take off soon after pitching the wort temp is only going to go higher, because fermentation produces heat. many directions say to pitch when you get below 80, but i'd go all the way down your ideal fermentation temp before tossing it in.

I once was in a pinch when i pitched my dry yeast at 90 F, the temp that i hydrated it at. It fermented fine and i cant keep my hands off of the finished product. But you DEFINATELY NEED a wort chiller...9 hrs is way too long.

So if waiting 9 hours is too long then what do people do without wort chillers? The basic brew in my instruction book said to add yeast right after taking off a boil but the Sierra Nevada clone said 80 F -. So if I don't have a wort chiller you guys are saying I should just add the yeast after taking the wort off the boil like the book said? If so, will I still get a Sierra Nevada tasting beer? Since I did wait nine hours should I just dump the wort and start over with a fresh batch adding yeast right after boiling stops after taking off stove? Thanks for your quick responses, Robert

bobbrewster said:

So if waiting 9 hours is too long then what do people do without wort chillers? The basic brew in my instruction book said to add yeast right after taking off a boil but the Sierra Nevada clone said 80 F -. So if I don't have a wort chiller you guys are saying I should just add the yeast after taking the wort off the boil like the book said? If so, will I still get a Sierra Nevada tasting beer? Since I did wait nine hours should I just dump the wort and start over with a fresh batch adding yeast right after boiling stops after taking off stove? Thanks for your quick responses, Robert

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NO! Never pitch that hot. Use an ice bath or something and get it down faster. Less than 80 is alright, but it is better to pitch close to the ideal fermentation temp. of your yeast.

Don't dump it yet, let it go like normal now and see what happens. If it still tastes fine then no harm done.

Don't throw it out....it will likely be ok. It may have some estery flavors that are unwanted in an SNPA clone. WHat you should throw out is any piece of literature that tells you to pitch immeadiately after the boil ends!

If you don't have an immersion chiller, then a simple ice bath will work. Since it sounds like you are a relatively new brewer, I am guessing you probably are boiing on the stove top. With about 5 min to go in your boil, begin filling your sink with ice/water mix. At knock-out, remove your pot and place it into the ice bath. In about 30min, you should be able to cool it down to <75 at least. You may need to add some additional ice, but either way, you should be fine.

-Todd

I pitched my first batch at 86F and it fermented out just fine. What I didn't do was aerate the wort before pitching, which left me with a stuck fermentation after a day that took off once I racked to the secondary.

I cooled my first one off in a sink with ice. Worked pretty well, but still took a long time.

The second one I put in a big plastic bucket (the party kind you fill with ice and beer) and used a hose to supply a constant stream of cold water around the outside. That got 3 gallons of pre-boil wort from boiling to 90F in 15 minutes.

Hope that helps,

-Joe

FishinDave07 said:

I once was in a pinch when i pitched my dry yeast at 90 F, the temp that i hydrated it at. It fermented fine and i cant keep my hands off of the finished product. But you DEFINATELY NEED a wort chiller...9 hrs is way too long.

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How efficient is a wort chiller in South Florida? Up here in north Florida, our tap water is about 72 degrees... It just seems that ice is quicker and get temperatures to drop further than would be possible with a wort chiller (it takes me about 25 minutes to 70 degrees using ice).

ArcaneXor said:

How efficient is a wort chiller in South Florida? Up here in north Florida, our tap water is about 72 degrees... It just seems that ice is quicker and get temperatures to drop further than would be possible with a wort chiller (it takes me about 25 minutes to 70 degrees using ice).

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A chiller is a lot more efficient with a pre chiller, which you might need in florida.

You guys are awesome. Yes this is my first batch. I was just following the instructions "boil 45 min, remove from heat and add yeast at 80 F." Didn't say anything about ice or cooling down by any means other than room temp. I'm sure I should have researched more before I did this but what the heck. Sure is fun. Thanks again for all the quick responses. Oh yeah, when can I "taste" the wort/beer to see if it fermented ok? I just don't want to wait 3-5 weeks to know if I should start over. Want to get my first GOOD batch ready asap. Thanks, Robert

When you guys talk about aeration are you talking about exposing to the atmosphere (i.e. leave lid off wort) or charging with carbon dioxide (i.e. leaving lid on wort)?? And at what point does this aeration take place? Thanks, Robert

The yeast need oxygen to work. You put the wort in to your primary...and shake. if you did a 2.5 gal. boil your top off water should have enough air. You want to have that sucker seald up as quick as you can. after fermenting you never want to introduce air (no splashing)

If you use a wort chiller in FL, I would run the tubing leading to the wortchiller in an ice bath. It may help cool it some.

That being said, my bro brews in CLermont and uses an ice bath.

bobbrewster said:

You guys are awesome. Yes this is my first batch. I was just following the instructions "boil 45 min, remove from heat and add yeast at 80 F." Didn't say anything about ice or cooling down by any means other than room temp. I'm sure I should have researched more before I did this but what the heck. Sure is fun. Thanks again for all the quick responses. Oh yeah, when can I "taste" the wort/beer to see if it fermented ok? I just don't want to wait 3-5 weeks to know if I should start over. Want to get my first GOOD batch ready asap. Thanks, Robert

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When did you pitch your yeast?

Give it a week. If your airlock is still bubbling, give it a while longer. You can't tell via taste if your fermentation is done.

Here's what you need to do.

1. Go to the store and buy a 12 pack of beer. Not Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, because you don't want an A/B comparison. Judge your beer on it's own merits when you're done.

2. Relax, drink your beer, and just make sure you keep the fermentation bucket around 60-70 degrees as much as you can.

3. Check your beer for a few minutes once a day to track what's happening. Continue drinking your beer that you bought.

4. Give it a few days after bubbling stopped. If the foam on the beer has fallen, wait another day or two and get your SANITIZED beer thief or turkey baster, and take a hydrometer reading. If it's not in your predicted FG range, give it another few days. If it is, wait until tomorrow, take another reading. If it's dropping still, wait a few more days. If it isn't, wait one more day, take a reading, and if it's still the same, rack to either secondary or bottling bucket. You can taste the sampling if you want to see how things are going.

5. I know you're impatient, but really, your beer needs to sit 2-3 weeks in the bottle to carbonate. I know you *really* don't want to wait, so if you have to cheat, crack one open over the sink after a week or so just to satisfy your curiosity.

I know how you feel. I was impatient too with my first batch. The only other thing I can suggest is to start reading up on your new hobby. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is considered a staple, and I also am working through the Homebrewer's Companion, and I have How To Brew on my reading list as well. Understanding what's going on, both on a microscopic level and a macro level really helps me appreciate what it is I'm doing, and all this reading is eating up weeks of time!

Once your beer is bottle conditioned, you can start drinking it, and you have something to tide you over while you brew your next batch. Keep a notebook (or a notepad on your computer or whatever), note what you did wrong, what you did right, things you liked and didn't like about your beer, temperatures, boil times, etc etc. Your beer journal will help you learn what you're doing right and wrong, and will help you see where you need to work on your technique.

Cheers from another novice!

So, I'm curious as to what temperature it is fermenting at. You want to get it down to 65-70 degrees for a better beer.

bobbrewster said:

When you guys talk about aeration are you talking about exposing to the atmosphere (i.e. leave lid off wort) or charging with carbon dioxide (i.e. leaving lid on wort)?? And at what point does this aeration take place? Thanks, Robert

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During the first phase of fermentation, the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce. Aeration accomplishes this. When you boil the hell out of your water, you are naturally driving off a good portion of the oxygen that was in it. Distilled water from the store has, by definition, almost no oxygen in it, and must be aerated.

Most people slosh around the wort in the carboy or bucket for a few minutes, or pour it back and forth, or if you're like me and you're filtering and adding water, letting all the wort filter through a mesh and cheesecloth, then splash from a decent distance into the brew bucket does a passable job. The best ways if you get seriously into this is to either invest in an aquarium stone and pump air through it, or pump pure O2 through it (a cheap limited source of O2 is at the Home Depot style stores for welding gas). Look up other threads on here about aeration to know how long you should aerate for proper oxygen.

Note however, that once the wort is properly oxygenated, air and oxygen become your enemy after fermentation. Try to keep from agitating your beer once you've put the fermentation lock in place.