Is Pitch and Cool OK?

[Wynne-R]

I just pitched a 5 ga pale with rehydrated S05 and then dumped 20# of ice on it. Can the yeast hang with that? I have done this with half a dozen batches, so far so good. Of course getting away with it doesn’t make it best practice.

My tap water is 30ºC(86ºF) and the ice cools it 10 or 12 degrees, (high sixties F). Even with the ice it takes six or eight hours to cool. If I had a fermentation chamber (I don’t) it would take even longer.

I’m guessing pretty much everybody has tap water that is warmer then ferm temp this time of year.

Is it better to pitch before or after the wort cools?

 

[danielbt]

After.

You're really dumping 20 pounds of ice into enough water to make 5 gallons, and your water temp only goes down by 10 12 degrees?

Something seems off there.

 

[afr0byte]

I just pitched a 5 ga pale with rehydrated S05 and then dumped 20# of ice on it. Can the yeast hang with that? I have done this with half a dozen batches, so far so good. Of course getting away with it doesn’t make it best practice.

My tap water is 30ºC(86ºF) and the ice cools it 10 or 12 degrees, (high sixties F). Even with the ice it takes six or eight hours to cool. If I had a fermentation chamber (I don’t) it would take even longer.

I’m guessing pretty much everybody has tap water that is warmer then ferm temp this time of year.

Is it better to pitch before or after the wort cools?

Nope...last time I checked it was no more than about 60!

EDIT: Yes it's better to pitch after the wort cools.

 

[Wynne-R]

The ice is in a tub, along with the carboy. Forty pounds of beer, twenty pounds of ice.

I had never bothered to figure it out, I just did it experimentally.

41.5*30/61.5=20.2ºC It works out.

 

[danielbt]

Ah. Your wording made it seem like you were pouring the ice into the fermenter.

Anyhow, you may want to look into using a wort chiller with a submersible pump to push ice water through it. My tap water is also around 85F, so I have the same issues getting the wort cold enough.

Harbor Freight has cheap submersible pumps. Just use tap water to get the wort to 150F-ish, then switch to using the pump. It'll be a much more efficient use of that 20# of ice.

 

[Wynne-R]

I talked it over with the yeast and they’re fine with it. If they were unhappy, wouldn’t I taste it in the beer?

I like my setup. 20# of ice is $1.75. I supplement that with frozen water bottles. If I had all that other stuff, it would never fit in my apartment.

If I had to, I could wait to pitch, but right now I don’t see any benefit. It would make me nervous to have all that wort laying around all day with no yeast.

Afr0byte, very funny. Vermont is lovely, but it’s a long way to go for cool water. Tapwater has been warm here all summer, and summer starts in April.

 

[kh54s10]

We are assuming that you get the temperature below 100 degrees before you pitch the yeast. If not, sooner or later your temperature will be hot enough to kill your yeast before you get it on the ice.

My last one I pitched at 80 degrees then put the fermenter in my swamp cooler and iced well to keep near 70 degrees.

 

[solbes]

Always pitch yeast AFTER cooling the wort. At least get it to low/mid 70's prior to the pitch. In the six to eight hours it takes the wort to cool, the yeast is already well within its reproduction phase, maybe even done at that temp? All kinds of byproducts for it to clean up later on that could have been avoided.

I would second the advice above with the wort chiller and submersible pump & ice bath. Fairly inexensive change that will likely improve your beer. To test the theory, make a batch and go through the long cooling process prior to the pitch. See if its any different. I would guess it will be.

This was the single largest difference I ever noticed in my brewing. Batch #1 was pitched at 85. Batch #2 at 65. I liked #2 much better

 

[dcp27]

If I had to, I could wait to pitch, but right now I don’t see any benefit. It would make me nervous to have all that wort laying around all day with no yeast.

if you have good sanitation there's no worries in waiting

 

[Wynne-R]

All these great posts got me thinking. Then it occurred to me to check Chris White’s book, “Yeast.” Found this:

A common technique when working with a slightly undersized pitch of yeast is to carry out the lag phase under warmer conditions. While it may not create off-flavors directly, it can increase some precursors, like alpha acetolactate, which is the precursor for diacetyl . . . Other than these precursors, yeast produce minimal flavor compounds during the lag phase.

More research is required. Next time I‘ll pitch the same batch at 65ºF and see if there’s any difference.

 

[terrapinj]

if you swirl the beer around in the carboy periodically you will help cool it faster - other option is to leave it in your boil kettle and stir while its cooling - increased surface contact to the colder water will help

you could also get a plastic tub like used for 1/2 barrel kegs and place your carboy/kettle in there - less water to chill so it will get/stay colder

 

[crushingblackdoom]

if you have good sanitation there's no worries in waiting

What he said I practice a similar method, but try to be as absolutely super clean as possible during the cooling/transferring phase. I guess it's called "no chill" chill. I like it. It's free. And effective. Awesome ferments, in buckets, starting in about 6 hrs, slowing after just 3-4 days.
I looked at those Aussies and they're Cubes and it seems like they ALL no-chill, so I say, why don't I do that? What a difference it's made in my brewday!! No DMS, no diacetyl, and no worries! AG brews enjoyed daily! RDWHAHB. BrewOn!

 

[crushingblackdoom]

I should also specify that by "slowing after 3-4 days" I meant achieving terminal gravity.
Then let it do it's magic for the next 2 wks or so.