Overnight Pitch?

I brewed a stout last night and poured the wort into the primary fermenter. I put it in an ice bath and sealed the fermenter. I then proceeded to promptly fall asleep. I ended up pitching the yeast this morning with the temp about 66. I was just wondering if there will be ill effects from this? The primary was sealed all night, just popped open to pitch the yeast.

Thoughts?

I appreciate it!

LT

They say you want to pitch as soon as it hits 80,i think youll be ok though.Just bring the temp of the wort a little higher for faster fermentation.

Pitching at 66 is awesome, most ales ferment here, this is optimal. What yeast strain? An english yeast?

It is not recommended to pitch hot, 80F is hot... I would not take this advice.

I genrally pitch between 65 and 68F... there are no ill affects, in fact it will make a cleaner tasting beer.

If you pitch and ferment hot, it will ferment faster, but you may not like the flavors the yeast throw off above 70F.

Waiting overnight to pitch isnt a big deal either, some people wait weeks... overnight in a sanitary and sealed container is no biggie. Think of this, some brews take 72 hours to show active fermentation after pitching, how many days is that?

I was more just wondering about the 8 hour time delay? Glad to hear I might have unintentionally done something *right*.

The time delay is nothing to worry about as long as you have good sanitation practices.

-Steve

mr_clean said:

They say you want to pitch as soon as it hits 80,i think youll be ok though.Just bring the temp of the wort a little higher for faster fermentation.

Click to expand...

IMO this is not good advice. The Pol hit it on the head.

If your sanitation practices are solid you will have no problems with this technique. However, I would look into no-chill brewing (again Pol is a good source) if you are taking overnight to cool. I think that technique would be great for you!

Yeah, if you want to chill overnight to suit your needs, PM me and I can give you some quick and dirty info on no chill brewing. Sounds like it may work for you... there are threads here that are great reads, but cutting through all of the BS in them can make it confusing.

Pol - Thanks, I'm looking it up right now and getting an idea. It's been a few years since my last brew. If I get back into it, I'll def. look into it more. I always am pressed for time (brew in the evenings) and never really wanted to waste the water with an IC. I guess I'm just getting old, can't stay up waiting for the beer to cool anymore.

When I started out, and it was a few years before I made a chiller, I regularly let the batch chill overnight...covered with foil, or Blowoff (1 1/4") tube into water (the tube will suck some of the water up as it cools, but not enough to get back into the carboy.)

I would never pitch at 80F, some beer style are better off pitching cold 64F and let the natural fermentation temperature raise it up to 68F.

+100, IMO much better to pitch late, rather than pitch hot. Years ago the mentality was that it was imperative to get the yeast started asap before anything started to infect the brew. This sort of led to panic pitching IMHO. I have sort of given up waiting on my brew to chill as I just use a bath for the kettle. Sometimes it goes ovenight, sometimes I just pitch later the same day.

I pretty much have too let mine sit in the chest freezer for some time before I pitch. The watter is about 70 but the 100F heat in the sun makes getting wort that cold impossible.

One thing to note is pitching temp and fermenting temp are quite different. Both can be used to get yeast to do what you want them to do.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

IMO this is not good advice.

Click to expand...

O really? ive made 25 + batches,they all tasted fine.

mr_clean said:

O really? ive made 25 + batches,they all tasted fine.

Click to expand...

Really, probably not the most sound advice, no. I have never in all my years heard that it is recommended to pitch as soon as the wort hits 80F. I have however heard the exact opposite.

I also wouldnt recomend warming up the ferment to make it ferment faster? Yah, it will ferment faster, but it will ferment differently as well. Many ale yeasts start throwing off some pretty strong esters at 70F and above.

If you prefer the esters in a certain style, then raise the temp, but dont raise the temp to simply speed up the process, as that is not all that you are doing.

Obviously this is the internet, and it is full of keyboard commandos. Any advice given here, should be taken with a grain of salt and the source should be considered. There are some guys here like Kaiser that I would take any advice from, others I would ask around to verify what they tell me.

The Pol said:

Yeah, if you want to chill overnight to suit your needs, PM me and I can give you some quick and dirty info on no chill brewing. Sounds like it may work for you... there are threads here that are great reads, but cutting through all of the BS in them can make it confusing.

Click to expand...

POL, THIS IS THE BEER GODS! WE ARE VERY ANGRY WITH YOU FOR PROMOTING THE "NO-CHILL" METHOD! No seriously, if I don't have a cube yet, could I dispense into a HD 5 galon HDPE bucket then toss into an ale pail later and pitch? Sorry to jack this thread.

I have done about 12 batches (every batch I've ever done) by pouring the wort straight into an ale pail as soon as it gets cool enough that I think the plastic can handle it. I've never tried storing wort long-term like that (I've always pitched the next morning), but I see no reason that you couldn't store wort in an ale pail for at least a couple days.

Obviously, keep everything sanitary and keep the airlock full with sanitizer.

just my 2 cents.

Ale Pails are HDPE, they can handle boiling hot wort.

This being said, yes you can drain boiling hot wort into the pail to cool, and then ferment in that same vessel. Actually, since it should be heat sanitized by that point, Id recommend it.

Be aware that your wort will shrink, causing some crazy vacuum in the pail, sucking in the sides, which is why I use the Winpak containers from USPlastics.com.

Boiling hot wort would sure as hell kill my auto siphon and leach crap from my hoses.

Conroe said:

Boiling hot wort would sure as hell kill my auto siphon and leach crap from my hoses.

Click to expand...

You mean "siphoning" hot wort? I don't know how boiling hot wort would hurt your auto siphon lol.

It sounds like they're talking about just dumping from the brew kettle straight to the bucket without siphoning, though.

I've been using no chill for awhile, and I just let the wort covered in the boil kettle for ~24 hours.

As for pitching at 80F, I've only done that with a couple of Belgian yeasts where I was going for a yeast flavor profile based on the temp. I wouldn't do that for most ales.

Conroe said:

Boiling hot wort would sure as hell kill my auto siphon and leach crap from my hoses.

Click to expand...

Obviously, which is why you dont use them for this process. Silicone hoses would be fine, but the el cheapo plastic on an autopsiphon would curl up.

knappster said:

You mean "siphoning" hot wort? I don't know how boiling hot wort would hurt your auto siphon lol.

It sounds like they're talking about just dumping from the brew kettle straight to the bucket without siphoning, though.

Click to expand...

Exactly, you would never siphon hot wort with something not rated for those temps. Just like you wount siphon it into a better bottle, or a glass carboy for the same simple reason.

It is either poured, or I simply drain it from the valve in my BK to the fermentor/cooling vessel.

Leaving it in the kettle makes more sense. Still it wouldn't get below 80F here. Moving/dumping 11 gallons is a bit difficult by myself (I have done it cold) and I'm starting to prefer to leave the turb in the kettle (I don't have a valve.) Other than not needing a chiller I see zero advantages. It's not like my plants don't need watter.

Yeah, this is like most processes... this isnt rocket science, so most of what individuals do, is based simply on what they prefer and what they value.

For some it is useful, for others not so much... just like batch sparging, HERMS, RIMS etc. All useful, but not to everyone.

Pol, are there concerns with DMS on a sealed carboy as it's chilling? My fear on late night brew sessions is that the DMS will condense and fall back in. Am I just paranoid? I'm also paranoid about HSA and a host of other things.

Catch-22 said:

Pol, are there concerns with DMS on a sealed carboy as it's chilling? My fear on late night brew sessions is that the DMS will condense and fall back in. Am I just paranoid? I'm also paranoid about HSA and a host of other things.

Click to expand...

You are just paranoid. People have been doing Pilsner based brews this way with no DMS. Do a 90 minute boil and feel secure in your brew.

Sweet. Thanks

Catch-22 said:

Sweet. Thanks

Click to expand...

No problem... this method has been flying in the face of convention on a lot of fronts. The DMS issue is one of them.

The Pol said:

Pitching at 66 is awesome, most ales ferment here, this is optimal. What yeast strain? An english yeast?

It is not recommended to pitch hot, 80F is hot... I would not take this advice.

I genrally pitch between 65 and 68F... there are no ill affects, in fact it will make a cleaner tasting beer.

If you pitch and ferment hot, it will ferment faster, but you may not like the flavors the yeast throw off above 70F.

Waiting overnight to pitch isnt a big deal either, some people wait weeks... overnight in a sanitary and sealed container is no biggie. Think of this, some brews take 72 hours to show active fermentation after pitching, how many days is that?

Click to expand...

Oh oh oh! I know this one! 5 days!

I've been pitching in the mid 70's. I've been using white labs recently which says to keep above 70 until active signs of fermentation are seen, then lower it to the fermenting temp. However, I'm using the California yeast for this current batch which ferments at 68-73 anyways, so no biggie there...

I have, in the past, left wort in the fermenter in the fridge to cool overnight (those late evening brews that I just don't want to sit around for while they cool off).

I have a question for you guys doing the no-chill method. Would something like this work at all?

EDIT: CF is a chest freezer in case you are wondering, lol.


I use a different fermentation technique, but would this no-chill-then-chill method work at all? I just had the idea after all the talk about no-chill and wondered. Pol, can you chime in on this?

WortMonger said:

I have a question for you guys doing the no-chill method. Would something like this work at all?

EDIT: CF is a chest freezer in case you are wondering, lol.

I use a different fermentation technique, but would this no-chill-then-chill method work at all? I just had the idea after all the talk about no-chill and wondered. Pol, can you chime in on this?

Click to expand...

I am a simpleton, what is the no chill and then chill method? I dont understand the flow chart at all.

Chest freezer(CF) full of glycol and chilled. Then, removed from the CF and stored for later use. Put keg/fermenter in CF and fill with hot wort and seal. Let cool like you guys do in No-Chill(NC). After cool, reintroduce "already cold" glycol into CF with fermenter to get to below yeast pitching temperatures faster and set CF to wanted temperature (this is the then-chill part of it and the glycol would just be a jump start on getting it cold). Now, (this could take several days) wait until starter is ready and pitch, and raise the CF set-able temperature to wanted fermentation temperature.

The glycol moving back and forth is confusing, but is completely secondary to the main question of the no-chill in a keg method I am wanting to try.

This is very confusing. Are you asking about moving the hot wort to a keg-fermenter until you are ready to pitch and then using other means to cool it when you are ready to pitch; if it hasn't already reached pitching temp?

dantodd said:

This is very confusing. Are you asking about moving the hot wort to a keg-fermenter until you are ready to pitch and then using other means to cool it when you are ready to pitch; if it hasn't already reached pitching temp?

Click to expand...

Exactly, and then the glycol is just a "stored cold" chilling liquid when I need it later on.

I thought the purpose of no chill was.....Place hot wort in sealed container. Leave for the night or a week etc.... come back make starter.....pitch yeast. To me that is SO much of a time saver.

Catch-22 said:

I thought the purpose of no chill was.....Place hot wort in sealed container. Leave for the night or a week etc.... come back make starter.....pitch yeast. To me that is SO much of a time saver.

Click to expand...

It is, the only thing I am doing different from that is using cold stored glycol to chill to just below pitching temperature right before pitching. I don't want to pitch at room temperature. I want my lagers pitched at 45 and allowed to raise to 50F during the ferment.

Aeration is my only concern, but with all the new stuff on olive oil starters and stuff I am not as concerned anymore. Still, I have an aeration wand and could always do this prior to pitching.

#1. I no chill... but I admit, I dont pitch at room temp. I let my wort cool for about 12-18 hours, then it is cool enough to easily let my CF do the rest. Say from 74F down to 66F to pitch.

#2. Aeration for me is just the same as an IC beer... I just shake the crap out of the Winpak before I crack it open, then pitch.

Good news Pol! I'm really positive about trying this and wanted to know more than what I had read. I confused everyone with talking about glycol and chilling and stuff, but the basic info I have got now. This technique has lots of merit I believe, but I do have to see so myself before I make up my ultimate feelings on it. Thanks again guys.

As I've understood, aeration is not necessary when doing no chill, as oxygen will diffuse through the wall of a plastic vessel at a much higher rate due to the temperature of the wort and vessel.
I think that the wort will become more oxygenated (even satisfied) when doing no chill than when chilling and aerating. For the last 5 brews I haven't aerated, without any problems. I've achieved the expected attenuation, no unexpected ester formation and over all great beer.
This obviously only applies to doing no chill in a plastic vessel, not in a pyrex carboy or a stainless steel vessel