Higher Pitch temp/ferm chamber

[JONNYROTTEN]

I just got my Ferm chamber hooked up so of course Im looking up threads about it. I came across a thread saying you could pitch yeast on warmer wort say around 80 deg,some said even higher, if using a ferm chamber with no ill effect or off flavors.The reason being, by the time fermentation kicks in the wort will be at correct pitching temp,say 65F,due to the temp controlled freezer..Getting that last 15 deg down is always the hardest and longest part.This would be a Godsent if it works...Anyone care to to chime in with actual experience (reference to US 05 yeast)

 

[jschein]

Put the wort in and bring temp down to your target range then pitch yeast.

 

[kh54s10]

Maybe someone can do a study on how long it takes to lower 80 degree wort to 65 degrees in an average fermentation temperature. I seriously doubt it would be at the proper fermentation temperature before fermentation starts. (I would think in days, not hours.....) Especially since the fermentation itself is going to add temperature to the wort.

Cool to pitch temperature, then add the yeast.

 

[m00ps]

every beer i make during the warmer months sits in my ferm chamber overnight to cool to pitching temps since its impossible to get the wort below 80F when the water itself is in the low 80s

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Ill do the test,simple enough.
What about aerating? I would never open my bucket in my musty moldy basement,Looks like I'll be humpin the buckets back upstairs to pitch/aerate upstairs if the test doesn't work out..What ever happened to "get to pitching temp fast as humanly possible to avoid infection",another debunked theory??

 

[d3track]

Not debunked, but in order to get to pitch temps sometimes it takes longer.

Think of best practices, if you can get to pitching temp in 20 minutes, great! If you have to wait 12 hours, the likelihood is your beer will be fine, but the longer it takes to begin fermentation the greater chance you are giving bacteria and wild yeast that get into the wort to take over.

 

[lilbova3]

I have a homemade wort chiller made out of 20 feet of copper tubing from Lowes and will cool my wort to around 90-100 degrees and then transfer. It's hard for me to get the wort temp much lower while it's still in the kettle so I go ahead and transfer to my glass carboy and throw it in my fermentation chamber. I do small batches of 2.5 gallos so there's usually around 3.15 gallons going into the fermenter and that amount of wort usually takes 2-3.5 hours to cool in my fermentation chamber that is set to 64*. I will usually pitch around 67*-70* and let it continues to cool to the 64*. I would recommend to always pitch at the proper temp.

 

[kh54s10]

I have a homemade wort chiller made out of 20 feet of copper tubing from Lowes and will cool my wort to around 90-100 degrees and then transfer. It's hard for me to get the wort temp much lower while it's still in the kettle so I go ahead and transfer to my glass carboy and throw it in my fermentation chamber. I do small batches of 2.5 gallos so there's usually around 3.15 gallons going into the fermenter and that amount of wort usually takes 2-3.5 hours to cool in my fermentation chamber that is set to 64*. I will usually pitch around 67*-70* and let it continues to cool to the 64*. I would recommend to always pitch at the proper temp.

Curious as to why your chiller will not cool your wort more, especially since it is only 3 gallons. If you let it run longer and stir the wort so that the cooled wort next to the chiller is mixed with the warmer wort you should be able to at least match the temperature of the water going through the chiller.

This also confirms my statement that pitching warm and waiting for the chamber to cool the wort would take too long. A 5 gallon batch will take longer and in 3.5 hours a healthy yeast pitch should already be showing signs of fermentation.

 

[lilbova3]

Curious as to why your chiller will not cool your wort more, especially since it is only 3 gallons. If you let it run longer and stir the wort so that the cooled wort next to the chiller is mixed with the warmer wort you should be able to at least match the temperature of the water going through the chiller.



This also confirms my statement that pitching warm and waiting for the chamber to cool the wort would take too long. A 5 gallon batch will take longer and in 3.5 hours a healthy yeast pitch should already be showing signs of fermentation.

Just showing there's multiple ways to do it. I guess I'm just too lazy to stay there and stir the wort. I do always cool the wort in the fermentation chamber to pitching temps then pitch the yeast.

 

[WWJPD]

I just did this a few weeks ago with a 5gal batch. My post-chill temp into the fermentor with a thermowell was about 80°. I had read that most flavors develop from the yeast in the first 24 hours, so I deliberately held off pitching until I got down to my 67° pitching temp. It probably took about 5-6 hours to get down to temp. Then when I pitched with a very active 1L starter of Conan, fermentation seemed to not kick off as soon as I thought it would. However, 12 hours later, it was chugging away and probably mostly finished in 3 days. 7days in and I was down to 1.011. I haven't finished dry hopping and cold crashing yet, but I think I'm going to follow this method as opposed to pitching higher and letting it cool down.

 

[Ungoliant]

..Getting that last 15 deg down is always the hardest and longest part

What do you do to cool your wort? I do 5 gal BIAB batches, and I have a crappy, small wort chiller that has no right to chill that big of a batch. What I do is immerse my kettle in an ice bath (I have a large storage size Tupperware container I make the ice bath in) in my kitchen, hook my chiller up to my faucet with an adapter, and run it while I whirlpool the wort. With my other hand (using a kitchen spoon or something), I stir the ice bath. I hit my ferm temps in under 30 minutes, though that last 5-10 degrees can take a few more minutes than the rest of it. I live in North Carolina and I brew in the summer as well, so my tap water can't be any cooler than 75 degrees.

 

[Neptune]

What do you do to cool your wort? I do 5 gal BIAB batches, and I have a crappy, small wort chiller that has no right to chill that big of a batch. What I do is immerse my kettle in an ice bath (I have a large storage size Tupperware container I make the ice bath in) in my kitchen, hook my chiller up to my faucet with an adapter, and run it while I whirlpool the wort. With my other hand (using a kitchen spoon or something), I stir the ice bath. I hit my ferm temps in under 30 minutes, though that last 5-10 degrees can take a few more minutes than the rest of it. I live in North Carolina and I brew in the summer as well, so my tap water can't be any cooler than 75 degrees.

Do you go through massive amounts of ice? I borrowed an (obviously way undersized stainless) chiller from my buddy and it took forever to get the temps down (5 gal BIAB also)... Before that I was using one of those big tupperware tubs with the rope handles and letting my hose run in it while my brew pot floated around. That was a little quicker, but still very slow.

I'm brewing tonight and I'm going to try the no-chill method and pitch in the morning. We'll see how that goes.

To get slightly back on topic, I pitched some S-05 on an 80 degree batch, struggled to get the temp down in a swamp cooler early on and I'm not real happy with the way it came out. Hoping I'll have that keg kicked tonight and be able to chalk one up in the lessons-learned column.

 

[CRoth36]

Not always.

 

[kh54s10]

Curious as to why your chiller will not cool your wort more, especially since it is only 3 gallons. If you let it run longer and stir the wort so that the cooled wort next to the chiller is mixed with the warmer wort you should be able to at least match the temperature of the water going through the chiller.

This also confirms my statement that pitching warm and waiting for the chamber to cool the wort would take too long. A 5 gallon batch will take longer and in 3.5 hours a healthy yeast pitch should already be showing signs of fermentation.

Just showing there's multiple ways to do it. I guess I'm just too lazy to stay there and stir the wort. I do always cool the wort in the fermentation chamber to pitching temps then pitch the yeast.

Yep!
After I posted my question I re-read and came to that conclusion - that you just didn't wait for the chiller to get as low as it could go.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Educating myself,not throwing stones:
So far Ive gotten 5-6 hours to get from 80 to 67 (pitching temp)
yeast will take off in under 3
Will 3 hours difference make a difference on a 3 day fermentation cycle(pretty much the shortest timeframe the forum mentions)
Also I always hit my numbers and see no airlock activity for a 8 hours at best.Which I thought was pretty good considering Ive heard a couple days thrown around a lot.

 

[Ungoliant]

Do you go through massive amounts of ice?

Unfortunately I don't have an ice maker, otherwise I'd just empty that sucker a few times during the week before brew day...So I just buy 3-4 bags of ice the day before, fill my tub about 1/4th of the way up and throw the ice in there. I add a towel on top to keep the hot kettle from potentially melting the plastic bottom.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

So I brewed a batch today.Only got wort down to 77,so I pitched on it.Put it in the ferm chamber and waited.At exactly 1 hour I got from 77 to 71.In exactly two hours its down to 68. Fridge was set to 65 deg. Can't imagine that Ill get off flavors in that short of time.Test was done with an Inkbird controller in a thermowell.

 

[Ungoliant]

Sounds ok to me

 

[C-Rider]

I'm only doing 2 gallon batches. I stick my wort chiller in the boil kettle for the last 5 min to steralize anythingon it.
It takes about 15 min to cool down to 79* using tap water.
Then I pitch and move the bucket to the freezer set at 62*.
Never had off flavors.
I only use dry yeast and use about 3/4 pack.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Im sticking to my new trend of not killing myself to get to 65 wort before pitching.The reason for my post is the beer Im drinking now and it tastes fantastic.Im going to pitch at the high end range of the yeast and drop the temp in the chamber(2 hours) till optimum range.If all works out after a few batches this will be my new practice.

 

[lilbova3]

http://brulosophy.com/2014/12/15/the-temp-at-which-we-pitch-exbeeriment-results/

Check out this exBEERiment results. Love this guy.