Temp at which to pitch yeast

[Craig C]

Hello all. New member here and excited to begin my new hobby of home brewing. I have been reading extensively, watching videos, etc and finally had my first brewday this past Friday. Everything went well with the boil, until I realized I could not cool my wort down very quickly. It took an hour or so. My main question is that my wort temp was around 90 degrees when I pitched my yeast. I did rehydrate my dried yeast in a large measuring cup at around 90 degrees before I pitched it, trying to match the temp to that of my wort.

I have seen very active fermentation starting late Saturday evening and it is continuing now. Should I expect any problems with my end result based on what I have just described?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Craig

 

[dmtaylor]

It will turn out fine. However in future, it is best actually to chill the wort down a few degrees cooler than you intend to ferment before you pitch. Like if you want to ferment at 65 F, cool it down to at least 65 F or even 62 or 63 F before pitching the yeast. Many homebrewers are seeing greater success with this than with pitching warm and cooling after.

 

[MaxStout]

As long as you can keep cooling the wort down before the yeast become active (and generate heat) you should be fine. It usually takes a while for yeast to take off, so that buys you some time to keep dropping the temp. I've had to do that with lagers, as it's difficult for me to get the wort cool enough initially. Cool with the IC, pitch and get the fermenter in the chamber to cool some more.

But as dm said, best to chill a little below target pitching temp beforehand.

 

[Jtk78]

I understand you're in Georgia, so you're going to have warmer ground water than me near Chicago, but that seems like a long time to get down to 90, especially this time of year. We're you moving the wort around the chiller at all, either by gently stirring or lifting the chiller? It makes a big difference in cooling time.

 

[Craig C]

Thanks for the replys everyone. I bought a complete setup from a retired brewer, which included a great wort chiller, but realized too late that I could not connect it to my kitchen faucet. I need to figure out how to use this. I brewed a 3 Gal wort and added cold tap water to get to 5 Gal. I then transferred it into my 6 Gal carboy and then realized I didnt have a long enough temp gauge to measure. I just used my instant read meat therm probe against the side of the glass to get a temp reading. Rookie mistakes, but just hoping I will get some good beer in my first batch.

 

[Jesse D]

I have my 1st two batches fermenting, they are 3 days apart, the first is Dead Ringer IPA, the 2nd one is Bourbon Barrel Porter, I too am hoping for good first brew(s). Everyone here has been great when it comes to answering my questions, what are you brewing? I'm in Oregon, so my groundwater is cold, it took me about 35 minutes to get under 90 deg with the help of ice. I am worried about this spring and summer, I'm researching now to figure out how to hook up a cooler to my sink, I've also got an idea of using a very small pump to pump ice water through the chiller.

 

[Craig C]

I'm brewing an APA. Hopefully an easy first brew. Ready to get started on an Oatmeal Stout.

 

[bigdawg86]

I always chill to 60° F because that's what my hydrometer is calibrated too... it's easier to just chill the whole batch to 60° so I can transfer, pitch, and get accurate gravity at the same time. 90° should be just fine... just make sure it drops to appropriate temp in next 8-12 hours so you don't end up with explosive fermentation and off flavors.

 

[mr_stout]

Craig C pitch yeast once it get down to 70 F/ 21 C. You can use a wort chiller connected to your faucet and it will help your wort cool down much faster.

 

[RM-MN]

http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html

Yeast love 90 degree wort and will quickly replicate and begin fermenting the beer. Unfortunately, instead of just producing the alcohol that we expect they also produce lots of other compounds at that temperature. You can expect the beer to be done fermenting quickly but have some weird flavors, one of which is a "hot alcohol" taste from fusel alcohol. Drinking several of these in a single setting will likely produce a massive headache the next morning.

When I started brewing I let the beer ferment at 72 degrees ambient. I got beer but until I started controlling the fermenting beer temperature in the low 60's I didn't make good beer. I sometimes chill the wort down to the upper 50's for my ales and let it slowly rise to the low 60's. It takes the yeast longer to get started at these temps but the beer produced is much better than when I fermented in the 70 degree range.

 

[chris000]

I always chill to 60° F because that's what my hydrometer is calibrated too...
...

Hope this is not the foremost reason, because you can easily compensate for that. Besides reading and calibration errors are often larger than a what a few degrees would do.