Bringing wort down to temp after pitching?

[Douglefish]

I know that you should ideally pitch at or a little below your fermentation temp, and I also know that pitching at a high temp can cause fusels and more esters. Last night I got a late start to brewing and was rushing. I just switched over to using a plate chiller and paint strainers for hop bags. I was still in my old grove and put the hops right in the kettle, which prevented me from recirculating the wort back into the kettle where my temp probe is. I ran directly into the fermenter from the kettle using the plate chiller. The hose wort wasn't hot, but it was definitely a little warmer that I wanted in the fermenter, I'm guessing the 80's but I really don't know. I then put it into my fermentation fridge and set it to 67.

Long story, but here is the question. How quickly do the yeast go to work? I bet I was at 67 within a couple of hours, do you think I will have the off flavor problems? Will the temp change shock the yeast?

Just curious, thanks!

 

[pompeiisneaks]

I don't think it should... The yeast takes a bit of time to reproduce and get ready to start eating. You may shock the yeast if the wort temps are too far off of the temps of the yeast itself. They take a fwe hours to even a few days. Basically, though, if you leave the yeast in the beer in primary for an extra week or two beyond the normal, say 3 weeks of fermentation, they'll clean up most off flavors anyway. give it a taste test at 3 weeks, see how it tastes, and if its fine, then you're ok, if its not quite there, leave it longer on the yeast cake to clean up after itself.

 

[JJL]

I think you're ok. I've had fermentation take off in a couple of hours, but it usually takes longer to really get going. As long as you weren't say above 100 when you pitched. I'd just keep an eye on it and make sure the fermentation doesn't take an abnormally short amount of time to come to completion, and then do what pompeii ways suggesting.

 

[Wellshooter]

I think it depends on the yeast strain. For instance I have pitched WL 840 at 70 degrees and then chilled it with no problems. But when I did that with WL 830 it was undrinkable.

 

[badmajon]

you'll be fine man a couple of hours won't do anything, not even with champagne yeast and a bucket of sugar water let alone beer yeast and wort

 

[Walker]

a little tip in case you make this mistake again.

It sounds like you have a pump in your set-up. Is that right?

If so, and if you can easily switch some hoses and stuff around, you could have bypassed the chiller and circulated your wort into your kettle with the strainer bag in the kettle opening. This will put the hops in the bag where you wanted them.

I don't use bags, but one time recently I had a recipe with no 60 minute hop addition and a large 30 minute addition. I goofed and threw them in at 60 minutes and then realized what I had done.

I grabbed a fine mesh screen and pumped like this to get the hops out of the wort ASAP and then sat them aside until I got to the 30 miunute mark and then I put them back in.