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Partially chlorinated water and yeast left on top of the oven

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AHR

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Feb 17, 2014
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Location
Queens
Hi everyone, I just joined the blog so let me know if I break any rules or etiquette. I searched around a little and did not see anything specific to my questions, but if someone knows of a thread, please point me that way.

Lets get started:

So I after a hiatus (move etc) I just got back into brewing (Wasn't very experienced to begin with though) and thought I'd make a simple beer to wet my feet again. I made a partial mash IPA and as far as the boil and everything goes I pretty much did everything as I should and to the T (I didn't have hop bags though which made for an annoying transfer). Due to my pot size, I only had about 3 1/2 gallons of wort and after transferring it to my carboy, I added a gallon and a half of water straight from the faucet (Chlorinated water Doh!).

My second mistake was that while I was boiling my wort I had a packet of liquid yeast sitting on top of the oven. Not thinking I transferred some of my spent grains from the mash into the oven. and started to dry them (at 200) the yeast in turn got a little hotter than i would have liked but i was unable to measure that temp as the packet cooled quickly.

So anyways after realizing my two mistakes I figured to run with it and pitched the yeast anyways (it was getting late and had to go to work the next day (today). After worrying about the yeasts viability a little more I boiled some of the leftover juices from the mash with nutritional yeast (no yeast nutrients around) hoping give a slightly more nutrient rich environment to overcome my mistakes.

12 hours later (I know its way to early to start worrying, but I am) I have an extremely thin layer of krausen (like a centimeter) and very slow bubbling from my airlock (Glass Carboy, so i don't think much leaking is going on) I'm afraid of my fermentation sticking.

In summarry: Used 1.5 gallons of chlorinated tap water after the boil (5 gallon batch), and possible killed a lot of my yeast by letting it get too hot by leaving it on top of an active oven

Some Questions:
-I know chlorine can combine with the tannins in hops to produce off flavors, if only around 1/3 of my water was not dechlorinated (NYC tap water) is it still worth worrying over?
-Assuming I killed some of my yeast in letting it get to hot, should I pitch some more? I'm worried about a weak pitch in a non-ideal environment due to the chlorine.
-Am I just getting way to worked up over a non issue? I think I am but I am doing absolutely nothing at work today so figured I could use the time to ask.
 
The amount of Chlorine is way too low to worry about killing yeast, so no worries there. However, you might get some chlorophenol (bandaid) off -flavors. You'll just have to wait and see.
You have two visible signs of fermentation- bubbles, and more importantly Krausen. So you didn't kill your yeast. Those little buggers are pretty tough. Adding more yeast now would be a waste of time and $.
Let her ride. Maybe give her an extra week on yeast cake to let the yeast do their best cleaning up after themselves.
Welcome back; you made beer and that's always good. :mug:
 
Welcome, and don't worry. I use Long Island tap water to top off regularly. The chlorine evaporates quickly at room temps, instantly above 80. When I brewed with hopped extracts, half of the water wasn't boiled, just poured into the fermenter before starting. With grain batches in a 20qt pot, I top off the pot right after flame out. No problem.
 
As you both predicted the beer is fine. Looking very healthy now. Hoping to avoid the band-aid flavor, the air coming out of the airlock smells great so maybe I'm ok (then again no idea if there would be any detectable odor).

Attached a pic for pics sake. Glad to be back to brewing and thanks for the advice! :mug:

IMAG0691.jpg
 
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