Waited 7 days to pitch yeast!

[jlajr2483]

I thought I would post my experience about fermentation as I continue to learn as I go.

So I brewed up a 17 gallon batch in my 25 gallon kettle and transferred it after doing a whirlpool with two pumps in line for 20 minutes. I transferred through my counterflow chiller into my 17 gallon conical. I didn't use my prechiller as I was half asleep and the temp only came out to 84 degrees.
We brewed starting at 8pm and didn't finish until about 3 am. Which I don't recommend doing again but it was the spur of the moment type of thing.

So anyway we put the conical into my 13.8 cu Kenmore stand up freezer and I set my johnson controller to 60 degrees. Well I have a 6 month old baby and I work night shift 13 hours 4 nights in the row so I didn't get around to pitching my yeast WLP090.
Because I do such large batches I usually take 3 vials of the yeast and step it up twice to get enough yeast to pitch on such a large batch. It usually takes me about 7 days to step it up twice.
I use a big 5 Liter flask to do my yeast starter on a stir plate and the flask didn't fit in my normal fridge for me to cold crash it and decant the liquid. I was too tired and just put the yeast in the large flask in with the conical at 60 degrees with a foil covering the top of it.
Well I got busy with work and the baby and just never got around to pitching my yeast. So 7 days goes by and everything I read online said that is too long. Well I figured I didn't want to let my blind pig clone go to waste so I hit the wort with oxygen then pitched the yeast hoping for the best.

I guess in theory as long as your sanitation practices are good then there should not be any problems. Well after 5 days of fermentation my Og was 1.061 and my FG was 1.012. I fermented the the first day at 62 degrees and gradually came up to 68 degrees before harvesting the yeast which I ended up with 2 large mason jars of creamy healthy looking yeast.
I hit the top of the fermenter with a blanket of co2 then I added my 8 ounces of dry hops for 4 days before cold crashing for 48 hours at 40 degrees.
I then added gelatin for 48 more hours and yesterday I transferred the beer in a closed system into my 3 kegs. I tasted a sample and it was tasty. I was expecting some weird off flavors or it to be bad but so far so good.

So I hit it with 30psi of co2 to force carb it and in 2 days I will relieve the pressure and set the serving pressure to see how the beer came out.
I"ll update the post after.

I posted a youtube video of the keg transfer to the keg in a closed system under the kegging forum.

Cheers,
Jose

 

[adiochiro3]

Wow. I've waited around 24 hours (no-chill with the CA drought, you know), but more than 48 hours would make me nervous. Glad to hear it seemed to turn out OK. Good sanitation and refrigeration should make the difference in such a case as yours.

Thinking about it a bit, though: we leave all manner of liquids in our refrigerators for weeks on end -- milk, juices, etc. Wort should be OK for up to a week unless I'm missing something. I probably still wouldn't do it though.

 

[Pscdouglas]

Ive pitched as far out as 3 days out of necessity, but it made me real worried. Came out great, no infections or off flavors.

 

[flars]

When you are planning your next brew, prepare the yeast first.

 

[Michigan_Wolfman]

Seven days before you pitched your yeast? If I did that, I'd be sweating bullets about an infection and having to dump a batch. Keep us posted.

 

[jlajr2483]

I had the yeast ready to pitch from the beginning. But making it out to the garage can be a chore with my wife working from 6 am -830 pm.

It was my first brew since having my first kid in December so getting back into the swing of things has taken some time. I'll keep everyone updated in the next few days as I taste and sample the beer.

I definitely don't plan on waiting 7 days again but so far everything has been good so fingers crossed for no off flavors!

Cheers,
Jose

 

[AQUILAS]

And here I am worried that I couldn't pitch my yeast after yesterday's brew. I don't have a wort chiller so I got as low as 90F doing an ice bath and then I slapped on the lid with an airlock and put it in my ferm chamber. A few hours later, I was down to 70s and I pitched. Since I'm in California, it seems this'll be how I'll have to do it from now on (unless I can figure out how to recycle that water).

I guess as long as sanitation is on point, there should be nothing to worry about.

 

[DMosPickles]

Boiled wort in general is quite sanitized. In fact, I ran an experiment with two 1 gallon NON-boiled worts pulled from the mash, one at 1.080 and one at 1.020. I left them airlocked in the garage, and monitored pH and aroma over the next few weeks. After 2 weeks, the 1.020 had dropped to 4.5 but the 1.080 was still up around 5.0. This indicates that the higher gravity wort actually staves off infection.

Would I "want" to use a 2-week old non-boiled wort? Of course not, but it shows that wort in general is more sterile than you think and that gravity assists in helping stave off infection.

And I feel your pain jla. My wifey has another bun in the oven, which will make brewing an even larger rarity.