Cooling Wort

[TonyHarrison]

Hi Guys,

I recently made a kit wort, once I was done the temperature was about 30 degrees so I couldn't pitch the yeasts right away.

I had to go to work, so I put the lid on the FV and put some foil over the airlock hole and put it in my fermenting fridge and set the temp to 18. I got home from work about 14 hours later and gave the wort a serious stir to aerate and pitched US 05 yeast.

It's been about 36 hours now and I'm not getting any activity at all.

Have I potentially ruined the wort by leaving it so long?

Perhaps there isn't enough oxygen in the wort for the yeast?

 

[Bribie G]

It will be fine. For the first 24 hours or longer the yeasties are doing what girl yeasts and boy yeasts do when you leave them alone together in the dark (not actually correct but you know what I mean). Then they (and their offspring) get on with the job of fermenting, so you won't probably see much in the early stages. Also yeast, naturally, prefers to work at 30 degrees but we don't let it, so forcing it to work at below 20 can take a bit longer to kick off than higher temperatures. 18 is an excellent temperature for fermenting, especially kit brews.

By tomorrow morning you should notice "lily pads" of stuff rising to the surface then pretty quickly a krausen should build up and you're away.

Welcome to the obsession Tony

 

[TonyHarrison]

Legend thanks mate, this is my 3rd batch and the first 2 kicked off after about 24 hours.

 

[Brewnicorn]

Some kick off hard and some barely a titter. In a few days the gravity will tell the story.