Pitched yeast into too warm of wort - how high is too high?

Hey guys,

Beginning brewer who has yet to really embrace RDWHAHB just yet...

I was on my second brew last night, an APA kit from Brewer's Best, with upgraded yeast to Wyeast 1056 - American Ale. I unfortunately did not buy enough ice this time around to sufficiently cool the wort in the kettle in proper time. I know this can cause chill haze, but at this stage of the game, I couldn't care less about chill haze. I also boiled 2 gallons or so of water and put it in the primary fermenter to cool (per John Palmer...) Now the issues - I waited for more than an hour for the wort to cool, it didn't get to the 70* temp that I wanted, and I was out of time for this little project so had to just throw the wort in the fermenter and pitch. Unfortunately the temp of the 5 gallons of wort was somewhere between 86-88 F. I read somewhere that 80 was the absolute tops.

I checked on the airlock this morning, and it didn't smell like the vodka that was in there, but in fact a sort of beer like smell - however no bubbling.

Think I'm just jumping the gun here on worrying about this?

Thanks guys

OldStyler said:

.....Think I'm just jumping the gun here on worrying about this?.....

Click to expand...

Probably.

That temp isn't high enough to kill the yeast. Keep it as cool as you can from now on (65-70 is great) & RDWHAHB.