Killed Yeast

This is my first time brewing. For some reason, I thought you wanted to warm up the yeast before pitching, which i did in a pot on the stove. I then found out that heat can actually kill the yeast, so I ended up buying another pouch of dry yeast and adding it to my beer. It is a sierra nevada pale clone and seems to be doing fine (is currently fermenting). I have read that too much yeast can give off flavors. Since I pitched the yeast twice, should I do a secondary fermentation?

P.S. I added the yeast the next day, after the brew had cooled to 68 degrees

Most folks these days seem to only do a secondary fermentation if they are dry hoping or racking over fruit, so no need to do a secondary. As for double pitching the yeast, don't sweat that either. Worst case some the yeast survive and you may have slightly over pitched. The flavor might be a little different, but my guess is no one will notice. Keep the temp in the middle of the fermentation temperature range if you can. The fermentation can be ten degrees above air temperature. This will add fusel alcohols and other off flavors that you can't get rid of.

Use a swap cooler like this if you can:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/09/brew-day-for-doppelweizenbock-ii.html

And:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/09/swamp-cooler.html

Bates_Foreman said:

This is my first time brewing. For some reason, I thought you wanted to warm up the yeast before pitching, which i did in a pot on the stove. I then found out that heat can actually kill the yeast, so I ended up buying another pouch of dry yeast and adding it to my beer. It is a sierra nevada pale clone and seems to be doing fine (is currently fermenting). I have read that too much yeast can give off flavors. Since I pitched the yeast twice, should I do a secondary fermentation?

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Was this a liquid yeast that you heated? The double pitching will not be an issue at all.

No it was a dry yeast. I believe safeale us-05. The Recipe is for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone and it actually does call for dry hopping. Not sure if i want to try this as a beginner brewer though.

Bates_Foreman said:

No it was a dry yeast. I believe safeale us-05. The Recipe is for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone and it actually does call for dry hopping. Not sure if i want to try this as a beginner brewer though.

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Ok...dry yeast is rehydrated using 104F water so if you didn't go much above that, the dry yeast is fine.

Both liquid and dry yeast love 104F. The problem is most people don't like the flavors they produce at that temperature in their beer. Proofing yeast at 104 is done when making bread, but I've never done it making beer.

Yeast start to get gimpy around 140F, but don't start to actually die until pasteurization temps of 160F+. You don't want to dump the yeast in while the pot is on direct heat, but putting them in 104F water to reanimate is fine, like everyone else said. Just make sure you slowly cool them closer to pitching temp before you pitch, or you can shock them with the rapid temp change.

Everything will be fine. You did good by cooling the wort to a proper temperature. And dry hopping isn't difficult. Lots of new brewers pitch yeast with the wort in the 90's, and then wonder why the beer tastes horrid. Over pitching is really only noticeable in extreme cases, and even then probably only noticeable to the most refined palates.