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Just chilled my wort but to much I think, it's at 60, do I pitch the yeast or wait till it warms up some?

If your yeast is within 10 degrees F, pitch. If not, let it warm a little and then pitch.

wesd25 said:

Just chilled my wort but to much I think, it's at 60, do I pitch the yeast or wait till it warms up some?

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If you have a wort chiller, bring the wort back up to exact pitching temps by running some hot water through it I stead of cold. If you did the ice bath you'll have to wait it out.

I would pitch it will be at temp shortly

I have the Carboy in front of a space heater, does temp play a role in OG?

I have gotten the temp to 67 now and pitch the yeast. I am scared that I messed something up since i didnt get to pitch the yeast until about 15 min after the wort warmed up, or contaminated my beer somehow. my OG was 1.060 and was supposed to be 1.052 according to directions. Is this bad? I put the blowoff tube on as well. Does anyone cover their Carboy up with anything like a blanket, shirt, etc? Need to relax was pretty stressed about this brew day

If its an extract/partial boil batch it's likely your OG is high due to not mixing the top up water before taking your sample.

If you have the right volume and its am extract kit then don't worry about gravity, it will be fine.

As long as your yeast is healthy and you weren't breathing on the wort as it warmed it will be ok. Have a beer and relax

Btw I always cover my carboy with a towel to ensure there is no light in there. Only consideration should be temperature control. Eg if your room temp is too high you may end up fermenting too hot with the insulation of a towel.

I usually pitch at 55F-60F. I use ice to keep my fermentation temperature in the low-mid 60Fs for the first 2-3 days of fermentation - that keeps ester production down. Put a t-shirt (pref dark color) over the carboy to keep light from skunking your beer. It's unlikely that you contaminated the beer as long as your sanitation practices were sound.

What's the recipe? Is this an extract kit? If it was a partial boil, the OG discrepancy could be due to poorly mixed wort+top up water (it's harder to mix it thoroughly than you'd think). Or it could be due to more boil-off than you were expecting if you're using software like Beer Smith or some online calculator or whatever, you could figure out how much water to add to get your OG down to 1.052, but most people will probably say don't mess with it at this point. Your beer will be a little bit stronger than you were expecting, not much, no big deal.

It's ideal to pitch at 60 degrees, and then let the beer warm up to about 65 for fermentation. Yeast do great at being warmed like that, but don't do so well in reverse (pitching warmer and then chilling).

I purposely chill below my desired fermentation temperature on every batch! That makes for a nice quick, "clean" fermentation.

Thanks for the advice! It was a wheat extract kit. I like the idea of pitching at a cooler temp and then letting it warm up. I also put a black t shirt around the Carboy. Thanks again!