Help! Forgot to take my yeast out of the fridge

[Kobrew]

Hey all, I just finished cooling my wort and sanitizing and filling my fermenter, I was About to pour the wort in but I forgot to take the yeast out of the fridge "3-6 hours prior to using" it's a hefe ale yeast WLP300. What do I do? Should I pour the wort into the fermenter and wait to pitch the yeast?


THANK YOU!!

 

[Ogri]

Should be ok to pour into your fermenter, cover and wait for a few hours 'til the yeast gets up to pitching temp. As long as your sanitizing was sound you should be fine.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Drop the vial into a coffee cup full of room temp water (or just slightly higher... I wouldn't exceed 90*F or so... but that's just a ballpark guess, I don't have data to back up that number). The contents of the vial should be at room temp within 30-60 minutes. The plastic will serve as an insulator and keep it from warming too quickly and your wort will wait. That's a much better option from a yeast-viability/survivability standpoint than pitching cold yeast into a warm wort which could kill up to half you yeast from the shock.

But the bigger question is.. why didn't you make a starter? You could have used a 1L soda bottle (or 750 mL wine bottle, or a 12 ounce beer bottle), some tin foil, and a few ounces of DME and have had much better results at virtually no extra cost. If you didn't aggressively aerate the starter, you could have had the yeast starting to form a krausen within 4-6 hours and had a MUCH better start for the yeast even if you didn't start the starter until you started to pull out your brewing equipment.

In these quick-pitch scenarios, I decided to try a 1.010 starter, no aeration, 50% yeast slurry (from the vial) and 50% starter wort. So far, in my one attempt, I had a krausen forming before I even pitched finished cooling my wort (all grain batch. 6 hours or so)! That's not to say that a 1.010 starter is ideal, but pitching a yeast colony that's actively generating some krausen is better than dumping in the vial and crossing your fingers. And such a small starter wort basically takes no time at all to cool in an ice bath, so there's really no excuse not to.

 

[Kobrew]

Unfortunately I had no idea about making a starting. I am going to look into it for my next brew.

However, when I pitched my yeast last night the wort had been cooling for a while an I poured it into Cold/room temp water then pitched the yeast that I had been rolling in my hand for close to an hour to warm it up.

Now, 8 hours later, there is no krausen or signs of fermentation. Should I repitch?

 

[Kobrew]

Also, the wort was colder then I expected this morning, it's a hefe, if I raise the temp, will it start up again?

 

[helibrewer]

Unfortunately I had no idea about making a starting. I am going to look into it for my next brew.

However, when I pitched my yeast last night the wort had been cooling for a while an I poured it into Cold/room temp water then pitched the yeast that I had been rolling in my hand for close to an hour to warm it up.

Now, 8 hours later, there is no krausen or signs of fermentation. Should I repitch?

Not long enough. With a single vial and no starter you need to wait at least 24 hours before expecting any signs, maybe longer. Try to keep that wort around 67-68F

 

[kh54s10]

Not long enough. With a single vial and no starter you need to wait at least 24 hours before expecting any signs, maybe longer. Try to keep that wort around 67-68F

This ^^ Except I would wait at least 48 hours from when the temperature was around 65 degrees before panicking and not do anything unless nothing has happened at 72 hours.

Underpitching and cold temperatures will BOTH increase lag time.

 

[Kobrew]

Not long enough. With a single vial and no starter you need to wait at least 24 hours before expecting any signs, maybe longer. Try to keep that wort around 67-68F

Okay, I'll do that. My only concern is that our heater (I live in San Francisco. We had a couple weeks of 'warm weather' and all of a sudden it's freezing again) is pretty temperamental And has not been working All the time. Would you suggest anything to keep my brew from becoming to cold over night?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Okay, I'll do that. My only concern is that our heater (I live in San Francisco. We had a couple weeks of 'warm weather' and all of a sudden it's freezing again) is pretty temperamental And has not been working All the time. Would you suggest anything to keep my brew from becoming to cold over night?

Wrap it in a towel or blanket

 

[Kobrew]

So, fermentation has definitely started. It's actually so active that it went from nothing. To barely anything to blowing the lid off my primary bucket (even though I have a blow off tube)

I guess I'm just a worry wort (hahah, get it?)

 

[45_70sharps]

Blowing the lid off the bucket? It sounds like the lid wasn't on all that tight.

As for a starter. It's rare that I don't make one. Only if I didn't plan on brewing and a I find myself with the time and motivation unexpectedly. (Time is the key thing in my world, for everything )
I try and get it going a couple days ahead so that I know that I've got good life going. If I ever end up not having signs of life, I can either make another starter or hold off on brewing if I don't have more yeast that I want to use.

 

[Kobrew]

Blowing the lid off the bucket? It sounds like the lid wasn't on all that tight.

As for a starter. It's rare that I don't make one. Only if I didn't plan on brewing and a I find myself with the time and motivation unexpectedly. (Time is the key thing in my world, for everything )
I try and get it going a couple days ahead so that I know that I've got good life going. If I ever end up not having signs of life, I can either make another starter or hold off on brewing if I don't have more yeast that I want to use.

Let me rephrase that,it did not blow the lid off. The lid was still intact,but there was krausen on and around the outside of the bucket. I've had trouble sealing the lid. So this time I cleaned off the bucket and put a box of empty bottles on it to keep it locked down.