Okay, so...
Did a bigger boil than I ever have before, despite not having any sort of rapid cooling mechanism to speak of. After top-off, the wort was reading about 110F. I aerated it vigorously at the time.
That was maybe an hour ago. Now, one thing that is weird, I saw a cold break for the first time. At least, it sure looked like the pictures I've seen. But I didn't think I cooled it that rapidly. Maybe shaking the hell out of it right after adding the cold top-off water did it?
Anyway, after waiting an hour and seeing the temp fall to like 108, I decided to rig up a cold water bath. It's cooling in that now.
So my question is... should I aerate it one more time before I pitch it? How long is too long a delay between aerating and pitching? And is stirring up the precipitation that has already occurred such a big deal? It's probably going to be in the fermenter for 4 weeks, then maybe secondary after that, so maybe the precipitation right now doesn't matter so much as getting some healthy yeast?
(I'm also a little concerned I'm going to be underpitching, but there's no turning back now...)
(Hoping I'll actually get an answer at 2AM EDT... :/ )
Did a bigger boil than I ever have before, despite not having any sort of rapid cooling mechanism to speak of. After top-off, the wort was reading about 110F. I aerated it vigorously at the time.
That was maybe an hour ago. Now, one thing that is weird, I saw a cold break for the first time. At least, it sure looked like the pictures I've seen. But I didn't think I cooled it that rapidly. Maybe shaking the hell out of it right after adding the cold top-off water did it?
Anyway, after waiting an hour and seeing the temp fall to like 108, I decided to rig up a cold water bath. It's cooling in that now.
So my question is... should I aerate it one more time before I pitch it? How long is too long a delay between aerating and pitching? And is stirring up the precipitation that has already occurred such a big deal? It's probably going to be in the fermenter for 4 weeks, then maybe secondary after that, so maybe the precipitation right now doesn't matter so much as getting some healthy yeast?
(I'm also a little concerned I'm going to be underpitching, but there's no turning back now...)
(Hoping I'll actually get an answer at 2AM EDT... :/ )