First beer!

Brewed my first beer last night! Its a bass clone that I got from Midwest supplies.

I used some tricks from the forum to insulate my aluminum kettle and I got a good rolling boil on 5 gallons really easily. I regulated the temp to steep the grains but I think I could have gone from tap temp (80 is) to boil in about 40 minutes on a basic electric hob.

Because it was so warm last night and I ran out of ice my crash cool didn't get cold enough, so I ended up pitching at 80 degrees. How likely is it that I'm going to have off flavours?

If I keep the primary cooler (70-75) for the rest of the ferment will it help?

 

You will be fine pitching yeast at that temp.

 

Thanks! What temp does it start to become a problem? Like 82 or 85?

 

I've pitched yeast at 90 before due to a poorly calibrated thermometer and didn't have any noticeable off flavors. I have had a beer that stayed at temps too high during fermentation and it suffered from some weird flavors.

 

Any temp under 90 deg. Is good for ales. Or I'd say you would be fine. I pitch at 80 to 85 all the time for ales.

 

It really depends on the yeast, but depending on how refined your palate is, you may or may not be able to notice any difference.

 

Thanks guys, thats a relief!

Imm going to put the primary in some water and add ice periodically to keep the temp a little lower

 

You'll be fine as long as your still chilling it...fermenting @ 80 is bad...

But if you can get it down to 70 or lower in the next few hours you should be fine.

70-75 is on the high end for most ale yeast, which yeast are you using if you know?
Most ale yeasts high end is around 70-75...

 

Not a clue on the yeast unfortunately, but I have managed to get the temp down to 72 with a swamp cooler/towel/fan combo.

Thanks for the help, I'll post back once I've tried the stuff in a few weeks

 

Yeast spend some time propagating before there is any alcohol produced (lag time) and as long as you get your wort cool before the alcohol production starts you should be OK. I'd prefer cooler than 72 though. Add some ice and see if you can get the wort down into the 60's.