Need some help with new setup

[OZZ]

Hey everyone, recently I went buck wild and got a new setup consisting of two 14.5 gallon conicals and two glass door refrigerators controlled by fermostat temp controllers. Previously I was doing 5 gallon batches in carboys with a chest freezer/fermostat.

Last night I brewed up my first 10 gallon batch and have a few questions and concerns:

1) Being my first batch larger than 5 gallons (probably about 11.5 gal in the fermenter) I'm concerned I didn't pitch enough yeast as I'm not seeing any activity in the blowoff tube ( yes I know that's not always reliable but still it's reassuring to see it). I pitched 1/3 of a quart mason jar of pure-washed U.S.-05 and then another half quart mason jar of unwashed us-05 I took off an IPA that I kegged at the same time which just came out of cold crashing. The batch is a centennial blonde OG of 1.041. Did I under pitch to much?

2) I cooled the wort with my old IC chiller because the fittings haven't come in yet for my new plate chiller. I areated well and transferred wort to the conical. The conical has a thermowell on it so this is the first time being able to see actual wort temps instead of just ambient. I pitched at actual wort temp of 75 degrees and set the controller to 62 (next time I'll wait until wort is cooled to the actual ferm temp). Went to bed and woke up this morning. Ten hours later no activity (still early I know) and temps were only down to 72! So I adjusted the controller down to 56 degrees in hopes to lower the wort temp to mid 60's or so. It will take some tweaking I guess to figure out were I need to set the controller to get the wort temps where I want them. Which brings me to:

3) should I even be going by the thermowell and actual wort temps? In the past I had no idea of actual wort temps, I just set the controller temp and let it be. I also had strong blowoff tube activity the next morning though. I'm not sure what good the temp controllers gonna be if it isnt going to read properly. What should I do with the temp controllers sensor probe to get more accurate control?

I'm all ears if you've got any suggestions. Really concerned I under pitched. It's a badass system but I've got to get it dialed in. In the future I'll pitch double the yeast and get the wort temps down to the fermentation temp or below before pitching. I do have a magnetic stir plate for starters but I prefer reusing slurry and have always had things take off strong, but for now I'm wondering if the batch will be ok? I do have another 5 gallon blonde in a carboy in cold crashing now, I could harvest more of that yeast and pitch it in two days if need be?

Here's some pics of the setup:

 

[OZZ]

It will only let me attach one pic at a tme

 

[OZZ]

Blow off 1/2" I.d.

 

[OZZ]

Controller

 

[AndytheBeave]

1) I think your pitch rate is ok, but you didn't mention the age of the yeast or whether you used a starter
2) If it were me, I would've taken the beer down to ferm temp before pitching, but there are a number of conflicting theories on this. I think you'll be ok.
3) most definitely use the thermowell temp. You are concerned about the wort temp not the ambient temp. Not only that, but if you use the wort temp, you'll initially run the compressor for a long period of time to get the temp down, but once the temp is at the desired level, you'll probably only run the compressor for a couple of hours a day at most. You also won't short cycle the compressor.

I can't help you much more, because I am too busy drooling over your conical setup. Sorry.

 

[OZZ]

Lol I spend hours standing there drooling myself!

I appreciate the help! No starter it was harvested yeast from previous batches. The 1/3 quart washed yeast was maybe a week old and I let it warm up before pitching. It was active too because after warming up the co2 pushed the lid up on the jar where it wasn't before hand. The 1/2 quart jar (it was actually a bit more than half a quart) of non-washed slurry (hops, trub and all) came straight off an IPA yeast cake only an hour before pitching - but that IPA was cold crashed so the yeast was cold and only had an hour to warm up before pitching. So total it was probably a little shy of a quart total I guess.

I'm thinking next time I'll bypass the temp controller and let the fridge run full bore (33-38 degrees) overnight to cool the wort down, then check the wort temp in the morning and pitch at that time if the temp is appropriate. Then I can set the temp controller at 60 degrees or so to maintain. I think it will take all night to cool that much wort down I'm not entirely sure. It's gonna take some trial and error I guess to figure out the difference between set point on the controller and the actual wort temps.

 

[AndytheBeave]

According to Mr.Malty, you need 289 billion cells for this batch. If you use the default settings for harvested yeast slurry, even at a week old you only need 160ml (.145 quarts). I even adjusted mr.malty to use the thinnest possible slurry with 25 percent non-yeast and you still only need a just over 1/3 of a quart.
If anything, I think you over-pitched on this one so I think you'll be A-OK.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[OZZ]

You know, I've always washed and reused yeast and just eyeballed my pitching. It's the one area I didn't feel like getting technical about. If I over pitched on this ten gallon batch then I was WAY over pitching on all my 5 gallon batches! They all turned out though.

Guess it's time to number crunch my pitch rates from here on out.

 

[AndytheBeave]

Dude, I think I overpitch as well as I typically eyeball what I need and use a vitality starter. I am still using slurry from over a month ago.

 

[OZZ]

I reused yeast for 13 batches then started with a new pack recently because everything I read says not to use yeast like I was lol .... and honestly, I should have kept reusing my slurry it performed better. I pitched reused slurry three months old without doing anything, just let it warm up out of the fridge. Took off like a rocket. I'm just not sure about ten gallon batches and also gotta get a handle on temps with the new set up.