Pitched S-04 at 82 degrees

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BitterSweetBrews

Tim Trabold
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I just finished up a 3.5 gallon SMASH (2-row/home grown Columbus). I pitched some previously harvested S-04 yeast. I thought it was chilled to somewhere in the 70s (my sensor was acting up). I put it in my fermentation chamber and put the temperature probe in the fermenter's thermowell. The temp is reading 82 degrees, much higher than I expected.

I have set the chamber (a medium sized refrigerator) to 65 degrees. It will probably hit that overnight in 6-8 hours.

The yeast was about a year old and has been refrigerated. I pitched probably around 1/4 cup of washed slurry after decanting the liquid from 3 containers that had settled. I don't think it is going to take off fast but it should be OK.

S-04 has a range of 53-70, ideally 59-68. They even say to hydrate it at 80. The wort is at 1.041 OG.

I think I will be OK, but wonder if anyone else has done this? Any opinions on what might happen?
 
You may get extra body. Data somewheres about extra glycerin production by pitching hot then cooling to temp. Dont recall where but that was the gist.
 
A pack of S-04 is around $6 at my lhbs, not much if they are open and they are only 7-10 minutes away. But, it was late on a Sunday, they were closed and are always closed Mondays. I had 4 vials of the harvested S-04 and figured I would be OK (which I was).

This was a spur of the moment, see how fast I can brew a smash with what I have on hand after I read a Brulosophy article about a quick brew BIAB in an hour. It was Sunday and I didn't have anything better to do (at least that I wanted to do).

It took me 2 1/2 as I mashed and boiled normal times and was screwing with my temp sensor that wasn't working right (hence the higher pitch temp). It was also an experiment to see if the yeast would work.

If it hadn't worked, I could always have gotten some on Monday at another local store further away or gone to my close one on Tuesday or even just pitched a pack of US-05 or S-33 I have on hand or one of my many other harvested varieties. I like the cleanness of S-04 and wanted to use it. As it turned out, I was seeing slow bubbles after about 18-24 hours and good bubbling at about 36 hours. It was slowing down last night after 3 days, but as it is a 3 gallon batch, So I would expect that. I will probably check gravity tonight, see how it tastes and maybe add some dry hops. I will for sure let it go for at least another 6-10 days before I crash it.
 
I guess that 33 is a good score? I have never entered a competition.

I would say that you got to proper temperatures soon enough to not have a problem. Probably before fermentation really got started.

I turned my controller back on for a cold crash. The temperature is set at 50 and started at about 75 degrees it has been about 15 minutes and it is already down to 66.8. When it gets to 50 I am going to let it stay there for a while, then set it to 34 for the cold crash. I don't want the ambient temperature in the freezer to get too cold thus the pause at 50.
 
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