Relative yeast and wort temperatures

[vortura]

I brewed my first batch of beer on Saturday - The Cincinnati Pale Ale from John Palmer's How to Brew. While it seems to be doing its thing, it took a while (24-36 hours) to start bubbling, and even now after 72 hours it is still only bubbling slowly. Now, I've read the various "don't panic" threads, so I'm not especially worried, but I was wondering what I might do differently next time to get it moving a bit faster.

One thing I was wondering about specifically is getting the yeast and wort temperatures right. Following Palmer's recipe, I rehydrated my yeast (Lallemand BRY-97) with 30 minutes of boil to go, in pre-boiled water cooled to 34C. Having cooled my wort to about 21C, the yeast solution was still around 27C. I figured this might be too warm, so I sat my yeast jar in the sink in some cold (tap cold, not ice cold) water until it was down to about 23C when I pitched it. Is it possible I might have shocked the yeast by sitting it in the cold water, and need I have bothered to cool it down? Should I have just been more patient perhaps?

I don't think aeration was the problem because I poured the wort back and forth until it was nice and foamy, so I'm wondering if it was a yeast problem, or perhaps a poor seal leading to the slow bubbles.

Next, time the plan is to a) make a starter, and b) have a hydrometer to use. I wish i'd read these forums earlier because making a starter sounds like a no-brainer, and further, it's hard to have a conversation about fermentation without gravity readings. Still, I have had a peek at my brew and there seems to be a nice foamy krausen going on, so hopefully I will have something resembling beer at the end of this.

Any advice on the yeast pitching would be appreciated. Cheers all!

 

[vortura]

So, having posted this, I discovered the spec sheet for the yeast I used, which has more specific usage instructions than the back of the pack.

http://www.danstaryeast.com/system/...rican-west-coast-yeast-english.pdf?download=1

In particular the rehydration instructions say to leave for 15 minutes in warm water, then stir and leave for 5 minutes, then attemperate (is that a word?) gradually by adding wort, then pitching immediately. It also says:

Do not allow attemperation to be carried out by natural heat loss. This will take too long and could result in loss of viability or vitality.​

So I guess I've learnt something for next time. Interestingly it says it is unnecessary to aerate the wort. Surely that can't hurt though, right?

 

[IXVolt]

I think they are referring to the wort you add to the starter, not the whole batch. You definitely want to aerate the large volume of wort.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Things are probably just fine. As far as yeast goes, you don't really do a starter with dry yeast, and rehydrating really doesn't even seem necessary for normal gravity beers. You're good though as rehydrating certainly won't hurt. I think above 1.060 OG might be a point to consider rehydrating in the future or more simply pitching a couple packs. You're seeing airlock activity - should be just fine - RDWHAHB

*Edit - Quoting Palmer in sec 9.3: "The fermentation activity can be vigorous or slow; either is fine. The three important factors for a successful fermentation are pitching enough yeast, good wort nutrients, and maintaining a consistent temperature in the correct range. If you do these right, it is common for an ale's primary fermentation to be done in 48 hours. Three days at 65-70¡F for primary fermentation is typical for the simple pale ale being described here."