Pitched Yeast too high?

[boicutt]

Uh oh.... I pitched two packs of re-hydrated Safale S04 at around 80F or less. Brought it down to 60F in about 5 hours or less. In less than 12 hours it's already fermenting away with force. Keeping it at a steady 59.7-60F

I messed up on a few sanitary things by accident and I didn't want to leave room for something else to take over so I pitched as soon as I could. I know this is not a good temp nor the technique that should be used, It should be the opposite, pitch lower than fermenting temp and let it rise.

What I was wondering is if the time I took to bring it down will save it or there is a greater chance that I get nasty esters/fusel taste I want to cry...

Thank you all!! As usual! <3

 

[unionrdr]

Was the yeast pitched dry or rehydrated? Bringing the temp down like that may've saved you from some off flavors. You might not get much in the way of esters, since the yeast was still in the lag phase while the temp was coming down. It likely just made them reproduce faster at the point you pitched it. I've found that I like S-04 for English style ales. Good yeast.

 

[boicutt]

Second time I use S-04, and I barely had lag time on both. Very fast and active fermentation in less than 24 hours on both, but last time I didn't do this.

I re-hydrated the yeast before hand for about 30 mins.

 

[unionrdr]

Rehydrating dry yeast cuts lag time, especially if you pitch it at high krausen. I got S-04 to start visibly fermenting in some 3 hours doing that. So you should be OK. Especially with 3-7 days to clean up any by-products of fermentation after FG is reached.

 

[Gameface]

As someone who has pretty much never used dry yeast I'm confused when you say pitch the rehydrated yeast at high krausen. Does dry yeast from a krausen while rehydrating? In such a short amount of time?

 

[unionrdr]

When you get the temp of the rehydrate water right, yes, it did for me in about 30 minutes. The temp was about 90.3F if I remember right. Pour the dry yeast in, cover & let it sit 15 minutes. Then use a sanitized skewer or other to stir it in. Wait another 15 minutes or so & it should foam a little. Then stir & pitch. From my own observations, that makes visible fermentation start sooner.

 

[boicutt]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no all yeasts foam. I'm pretty sure foam means nothing on lag time either?

 

[unionrdr]

Foam shows that the dry yeast are getting very active when they start to foam a little in the flask while rehydrating. Get the temp right & it should. In my observations, it helps a LOT to get visible fermentation going & finish faster.

 

[boicutt]

Now I'm curious of the science behind it! I'll look into it!