Better to wait overnight or pitch at a higher temp?

[timewasted]

So I brewed my LHBS' Abbey Ale recipe last night. I don't yet have a wort chiller (I will after this) so I used cold water to chill the wort down. Unfortunately I couldn't get it down fast enough and it was still at 90 degrees at the time I was ready for bed. My kettle is too large to fit in the sink and I was already slightly over 5 gallons. I didn't want to add ice and thin the wort out. I went ahead and pitched before going to bed, although I know it has the potential to contribute to some off flavors. Airlock activity is through the roof this morning, so I feel good that creating the starter was a smart move.

My question, would it have been better to sleep on it and let it finish cooling down or go ahead and pitch like I did? My concern was that it would have more time for wild yeast or other bugs to take hold of the wort if I waited too long.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[beerman0001]

Next time sleep on it and pitch in the morning.

 

[Yooper]

Pitching warm means that the fermentation is also warm, as the yeast took off right away. What temperature is the fermenting beer at now? I have a feeling it's still way too high. High temperature fermentations will cause off flavors like esters (ok in a Belgian usually) and sometimes fusel flavors ("hot" rubbing alcohol flavors).

I would suggest a bin or a large cooler as a place to have placed the fermenter in a water bath so that the yeast could be pitched at no higher than 70 degrees.

 

[beerman0001]

Search "no chill brewing"

 

[BradleyBrew]

Yeah, next time just seal up everything and wait for the wort to come to temp. I usually try to keep a 1 gallon jug of store bought water in the freezer just in case my chiller wont get it down to *70.

 

[helibrewer]

Tossing sanitized, frozen water bottles into fermenting red wine is standard practice, no reason you couldn't do the same with beer.

 

[BrewThruYou]

When I do lagers, I put both the bucket of wort and the flask of yeast in the fermentation chamber and pitch in the morning.

 

[PanzerBanana]

I usually fill the tub with cold water and slightly crack the lid to let the heat out. Does cools pretty quick that way.

Once I forgot to crack the lid, and it was still really warm, so I put the solid remainder of a bag of ice in a sanitized freezer bag and tossed it in. Didn't take long at all to finish cooling it down. In fact, I then had to wait for it to warm up a bit.

 

[Kealia]

next time sleep on it and pitch in the morning.

+1