Delayed Yeast Pitch Harmful?

[CentralNJBrew]

Hey everyone,

Essentially a yeast, time, and temp question.

Situation is this;

I transferred my wort to my conical with hopefully no problems. It is temp controlled, however, it's no glycol jacketed FV, and extreme ambient temps are a consideration since the shed I brew in has no insulation.

Conical read 87 at time of transfer (I transferred wort through HX at 68 degrees as best I could manipulate my baby-sitter prone brew set-up). I realize 87 is too warm to pitch my yeast's ideal of 68-70. It started making its way down in temp, but at too slow of a pace. Was late at night, and had to go home (shed brewery is at relatives property).

Got a call the following morning, conical was ready to roll at 70 degrees, but I was on my way to work already (I write this as I am on my lunch break). I plan on pitching later tonight after work.

Questions I have are these;

1. Is it alright to pitch the yeast later tonight after sitting in conical for almost 24 hours? I'm confident transfer, and conical, was/is sanitary.

2. To piggy back off question 1, How long can you let wort sit in a fermentor before pitching yeast, assuming at least no contamination, but taking into account temp, whether it is stable or it swings?

3. I oxygenated wort in-line while transferring to conical.

3a. Should I not have done this yet, knowing conical temp was not at ideal pitching temp?

3b. Will oxygenating the wort ruin the wort, since I didn't pitch the yeast yet?

3c. Will I have to re-oxygenate if batch isn't already ruined yet?

Thanks for any and all help, and hopefully my batch is still OK.

 

[billl]

1) As long as there was no contamination, you are fine.
2) If it was 100% sterile and sealer, it will last indefinitely. Of course, that chances of it being 100% sterile are about 0%. Even 1 stray bacteria will eventually reproduce and spoil the batch if it has no competition. How long that takes depends on how close to sterile you really were. A day or 2 isn't an issue if you were relatively sanitary to start.
3) a) no problem. You were cool enough to avoid any issues.
b) no
c) Depends what O2 level you were going for. If you leave it sit there, it will stabilize as ambient conditions. That's lower than most brewers shoot for with pure O2, but better than most homebrewers get just by shaking. If it's easy to give it another blast of O2, I would.

 

[oujens]

Most would say to not take this approach. However, I routinely pitch 12-18 hrs after I transfer to carboy and have never encountered an infection. We should all be sanitizing our equipment like crazy, so I don't think you should worry if you sanitized properly. The tap water in my area won't allow me to chill to pitching temps, so I must cool it down in my fridge once it gets to 80-85F.

Your wort is not ruined from oxygenating. You should be good to pitch, but adding more for peace of mind probably wouldn't hurt.

 

[CentralNJBrew]

Thank you both, billl and oujens. I had a feeling it would be alright, assuming decent sanitary conditions, but just wasn't 100% sure.

 

[Kerrbrewer]

I have read that the Aussies wait days sometimes before pitching. They use a plastic cube Carboy and flip it over on its lid. Sounds way wrong to me but it seems to work for them.