Wort cooled very slowly + high temp yeast pitch = bad beer?

[Petrunkle]

I've done about half a dozen 1 gallon all-grain batches, all turned out perfectly fine. This was my first time making a 5 gallon batch with my new equipment. Everything was going fine, right up until I was about to cool the wort. I always just used an ice bath. However, I completely forgot to factor for the fact that this time it's 5 gallons and not 1, so I didn't have enough ice to cool it down as quickly as I would like to. It ended up cooling down to 120F in about 30 minutes, but then it took almost another 90 minutes to cool down to 90F. At this point I got impatient and pitched the yeast and sealed the fermenter.

How likely is it that my beer is going to turn out spoiled due to bacterial contamination from the long cooling, or that it's going to have any off-flavors (such as DMS from the long cooling again, or any higher alcohols from the high pitching temperature). When and how can I tell if my batch is contaminated by bacteria? Thanks for any insights!

 

[djt17]

Next time if it is cooling slow; just put it in the fermenter as soon as you can, (120* depending on your fermenter), put on the air lock & let it cool to 65* naturally. Even if it is the next day, it is better than pitching at 90*. If your sanitation practices are good the infection chance is less likely than bad beer from too hot of a pitch.

 

[Psylocide]

No to the first... quite possibly to the second.

My dad had over a hundred batches under his belt... ALWAYS cooled overnight. All of his beers were great. Ive done it myself to no ill effect.

Pitching too warm can result in off flavors... I'd be more concerned about that.

 

[aprichman]

No to the first... quite possibly to the second.

My dad had over a hundred batches under his belt... ALWAYS cooled overnight. All of his beers were great. Ive done it myself to no ill effect.

Pitching too warm can result in off flavors... I'd be more concerned about that.

The biggest mistake I made when starting was being too worried about the wort becoming infected and pitching around 80F. Now I've become a little more relaxed and can hold off pitching until 70F

 

[JordanKnudson]

No to the first... quite possibly to the second.

My dad had over a hundred batches under his belt... ALWAYS cooled overnight. All of his beers were great. Ive done it myself to no ill effect.

Pitching too warm can result in off flavors... I'd be more concerned about that.

+1

I often find that on my longer, more involved brew days, I am just toast by the time I turn off the flame, and I don't feel like spending more time chilling, transferring wort, and pitching yeast (let alone doing all the dang cleaning, although it's hard to get away with not doing that part). So, I sometimes find myself doing no-chill batches in which I put the lid on my kettle, set it out of the way in a clean part of the house (I avoid the basement/garage) on a couple of trivets or a towel, and forget about it until the morning. I've done this a number of times and never had any problem with infection, weird protein coagulation, etc. If anything, the gunk settles out better and I get less sediment going into the fermentor when I do transfer it.

However, pitching your yeast at a higher temp can be more of a problem. Since your yeast is going to produce the majority of its esters and other byproducts early in the process, you want to make sure that you're pitching it into a set of conditions (temperature most definitely included) that will optimize its contribution to the beer. You also definitely don't want to shock it, so if the temperature difference between your smack pack and your wort is too big, that can cause problems too.

 

[JordanKnudson]

BTW, to answer your question about determining whether you caught an infection or not, simply keep an eye on the beer, and taste it every so often after primary fermentation is done. If it forms a pellicle (sort of a skin, like what you get if you heat milk on the stove without stirring it), then you've got an infection. This looks quite different than the krausen, so don't be too worried about telling the difference -- it is pretty obvious. If it starts to develop odd off flavors like vinegar/sherry, yogurt-like tanginess, or other such things, that's a sign of infection too.

With all that said, you're probably fine, especially if you kept the lid on your kettle during cooling and the rest of your sanitation process is up to snuff.

 

[Beernik]

Sounds like my first beer. I pitched at 100F.

You are likely to get some esters or acetaldehyde from the high pitch temp. How bad depends on the type of yeast and how long it took to get the rest of the way down to fermenting temp.

 

[Psylocide]

The biggest mistake I made when starting was being too worried about the wort becoming infected and pitching around 80F. Now I've become a little more relaxed and can hold off pitching until 70F

That's the thing though... if you spend some time cleaning and sanitizing and have that down to a T, infection becomes much less of a boogieman. Yes it happens, even when you think everything is on point, but the reality is, it doesn't happen near as often as you think it would.

Relax, focus on temps, make sure everything is sanitary and the rest will come.

 

[wilserbrewer]

IMO always better to pitch the yeast late rather than hot! The wort is very sanitary and happy in the kettle, rdwhahb.

Years ago I felt the same, that every minute the yeast is. It in the beer it is spoiling and getting infected, not really true in practice.

I also slow chill overnight in the kettle without issue.