Pitching direct from fridge to wort

[NYShooterGuy]

I'm missing something here. The directions said to cool below 80 degrees, not to 80 degrees. I'd guess that this is the maximum tolerable temp plus a little room for error.

My mistake for not being ultra specific. I cooled the wort to 80, in the fee minutes between turning off the wort chiller, removing the kettle from it's icebath, placing it on the counter, going to the fridge to get the starter, putting the starter in the bottom of the fermenter, pouring back some.of the stater beer into the flask.to get the last remaining chunks of yeast, and then going back to the kettle, I assumed the wort cooled of another .5°F (thus being under 80°F).

Of course, I think I once heard something about assume...

As far as the White Labs recommendations for fermentation temps, I was attempting to get the "Cool Brew" jacket down to my usual 66°F fermentation temps, but again as I've said at least 2 other times in this thread, I was away from my home and couldn't replace frozen water bottles, nor could I rely on my spouse to do it for me.

All in all, I KNOW all the mistakes I've made with this beer, but I will refer back to original ponder of how the yeast's life was impacted by this first and other mistakes.

 

[Gameface]

I almost wish recipe kits didn't come with instructions. I know they pretty much have to, but they offer so much bad instruction. And it's not like it's flat out wrong, it's just very far from best known method. Beer is resilient and can overcome deviations from "perfect procedure" but bad kit instructions almost encourages new brewers to make mistakes. They try to make it easier for people with all sorts of different equipment and situations to be able to complete the steps, but it'd be nice if they also said that 80F is the highest temp you'd ever really want to pitch yeast into and that it's preferable to get the wort at or below your target fermentation temp.

Can't really blame people for following the directions the kit makers provide. Why would most people even question their process if it followed the directions?

 

[Gameface]

OP, I hope you are taking my participation in this thread as intended, which is to be helpful and provide info that might be useful in the future.

As far as recommended temps for yeast are concerned, yeast manufacturers are a lot like kit makers when it come to their recommended temps. They want to tell you that it's okay to ferment at temps that you can achieve without a lot of fancy equipment. Some yeasts actually do work well around 70F. But there are even more that say 70F is in their range when in fact they taste much better well below that.

The yeast you used if for hefeweizen, and a lot of the time people want significant phenolics, in which case fermenting towards the top of the recommended temp range is the right thing to do. But that yeast produces phenolics no matter what and you'd probably get all you wanted fermenting at or below their suggested temp range. If the bottom temp was 66F I'd probably ferment at 65F. Not always true, but the lower you go the cleaner the beer will taste.

I make mostly English style ales and use English strains of yeast that have a tendency to produce a lot of esters. The esters are part of the style and they should be there, but I certainly don't go out of my way to get as much as possible. The esters will be there. I use WY1469 more than any other yeast and they recommend 64-72F. No way in hell I'd ferment with it above 70F. I try to pitch at 60F and let rise to 63F where I hold it for 3 days after active fermentation has started, then let it rise to 68F for the duration, until I cold crash it. When I enter beers from that yeast to competitions the judges frequently note that they can taste the "traditional english yeast character" which is good. But I am sure if I were to ferment high they would mention that the esters were overpowering, which would be bad.

Long story short, unless you're really looking to boost the esters and phenolics, consider the low end of the temp range to be the optimal temp for that yeast, if not a little below that.

The reason they don't list lower temps is because they don't want unhappy customers with batches that had extra long lag times or that didn't attenuate fully. But if you know how to work the yeast (good pitch rate, good aeration, precise temp control) you can get very good results below their recommended temp range.

 

[user 4295]

Do a Google search for "cold pitching". I've been doing it for years with great results. I will agree that the only problem here was that the op cold pitched into 80 degree wort. I chill mine to about 60 degrees and cold pitch my starters after decanting off the spent wort. Short lag times, vigorous, complete fermentations with no off flavors.

 

[NYShooterGuy]

Looking through my subscribed posts, I realized I never followed up with this one that I started. The Bavarian Wheat beer that I was making with Blackberry extract in the bottling bucket did have a lot of unwanted phenolic flavors. Even with 5 ounces of blackberry extract in the bucket, the off flavors seeped through.

In the future I will have to be more careful and ferment at lower temps. I just recently acquired a used kezzer from a friend that exited the hobby, so I'm able to control fermentation temps much better when no kegs are occupying the space inside at 38°F.

Thank you to all that participated and gave me advice.