Pitch High Or Pitch Tomorrow

[Truman42]

For some reason my chiller didn't get my wort down to around 24 like it usually does. I think its because I rushed the whirlpool time so was hotter to start with than usual.

Anyway my worts sitting at 34C. I've got it in the fridge with a Stc1000 connected up.

Should I pitch now? My slurry is at 25C

Or wait until the morning and take the risk? Which is the lesser of the two evils?

I certainly don't want to wait another hour until it drops to 25. Its been a long enough night as it is..

 

[bum]

Which is worse? Dead yeast or optimal pitch temps?

Decisions. Decisions.

 

[rotten]

wait till at least 30 if possible. Not perfect but doable. Not takin the piss

 

[Truman42]

Which is worse? Dead yeast or optimal pitch temps?

Decisions. Decisions.

Obviously optimal pitching temps is better but I wont have that until the morning. But if I wait that long I risk infection. Im not exactly sure how high you can pitch yeast. I know you can rehydrate dry yeast at 29C.

Hence my question.

 

[Truman42]

wait till at least 30 if possible. Not perfect but doable. Not takin the piss

Thanks heaps mate, thats all I needed to know...

 

[Charst]

How Long is Too Long? If your pitching a right quantity of yeast and extra hour without pitching in an infection sense isn't going to turn a gold medal to a turd. Pitching way too warm and having the yeast go into a downward temp slide seems like a worse option to me.

 

[Wolfy]

When I make lagers they sit in the fridge overnight before pitching the yeast the next morning - sounds like the same thing you're planning to do - so as long as your sanitation is OK, you should be fine to leave it and pitch in the morning.

 

[cam89brewer]

When I make lagers they sit in the fridge overnight before pitching the yeast the next morning - sounds like the same thing you're planning to do - so as long as your sanitation is OK, you should be fine to leave it and pitch in the morning.

+1 I think the most important thing is to have your starter/slurry and wort at a fairly close temp as shocking the yeast is a lot worse than leaving it over night to cool down.

 

[Truman42]

When I make lagers they sit in the fridge overnight before pitching the yeast the next morning - sounds like the same thing you're planning to do - so as long as your sanitation is OK, you should be fine to leave it and pitch in the morning.

I ended up pitching last night with the wort at 29 and the yeast at 25. So hopefully thats close enough and the yeast werent too stressed. But next time I will wait until the morning.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[chunckious]

I ended up pitching last night with the wort at 29 and the yeast at 25. So hopefully thats close enough and the yeast werent too stressed. But next time I will wait until the morning.

Thanks for the advice.

See if you can pick a alcohol/boozy flavour compared to your normal brews. I was getting this when I was too keen and pitching @ 28o.

 

[glenwal]

but I will switch to no chill so I can just cube it and leave it and don't have to worry about setting up all the hoses and crap.

What happened to the no chill idea?

When I make lagers they sit in the fridge overnight before pitching the yeast the next morning

This is what I do aswell. I normally sit my starter in the fridge with it, so next morning they are sitting nicely at the same temp.

 

[Truman42]

What happened to the no chill idea?

Well, why I was sitting there waiting for the boil to finish I decided to get the hoses and setup my chiller. I originally didn't have a hose long enough to reach my water tank but ended up finding one that reached. If I had known I wasn't going to get it down to pitch temps and then had to wait I would have just gone with no chill. My normal procedure is to wait 15 mins after the boil, then whirlpool, wait another 15 mins then run through the chiller into the fermenter. But I cut this short a bit and suffered the consequences. Always something to learn.

Just wasn't my night to brew.

Hopefully the beer will turn out great.

 

[gava]

I remember reading somewhere that the first 3 -> 15hrs (lag phase) after pitching yeast doesn't result in any nasty flavours coming out of your yeast but after that you open your brew up to some nasty flavours coming though..
So remember pitching high doesn't just kill yeast if you pitch to high and it stays high within the lag phase you could produce some unwelcomed flavour.

Found it..... from whitelabs

"The lag phase can be carried out at a higher temperature than the rest of fermentation because very little
flavor compounds are produced. Ethanol production is also very limited, therefore ester formation is not a
concern. Some brewers begin the lag phase for ales at 72-750F (21-24C) and complete the fermentation at 680F.
This can be done with success for lagers too, with starting the lag phase at 72-750F and lowering the
fermentation temperature to 50-550F(10-13C).
Brewers will not see any visible activity during the lag phase, hence the way it got its name. But this phase
is very important in building new healthy cells that will be able to complete fermentation. If the wort is
overpitched, this will decrease the lag phase, and each individual cell will not be as healthy at the end of
fermentation. Although it may feel reassuring to a homebrewer to see fermentation activity within one
hour of pitching yeast, it is not best for the yeast."

full artical http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/Yeast_Life_Cycle.pdf

Just another thing to think about when playing outside recommended fermenting temps.

 

[mattyra]

I remember reading somewhere that the first 3 -> 15hrs (lag phase) after pitching yeast doesn't result in any nasty flavours coming out of your yeast but after that you open your brew up to some nasty flavours coming though..
So remember pitching high doesn't just kill yeast if you pitch to high and it stays high within the lag phase you could produce some unwelcomed flavour.

I would have thought that since he made a starter the yeast were already starting to ferment, therefore making the yeast count a lot higher and fermentation would occur quicker. Not sure if it would make much difference.

 

[gava]

correct me if i'm wrong but I thought a yeast starter will have stopped its fermenting prior to pitching.. You feed it and it'll reproduce once all the food is gone you pour off the top layer and pitch the yeast slurry which has to start munching on the new food (wort) so it'll go through all the phases of fermenting again i.e. yeast lag etc.. it may kick on quicker so your yeast lag phase might be more on the 3hr side and not the 15hr side. So this in my mind would then open you up to more risk of nasty yeast flavours if your wort isn't at the correct pitching temp.


gav

I would have thought that since he made a starter the yeast were already starting to ferment, therefore making the yeast count a lot higher and fermentation would occur quicker. Not sure if it would make much difference.

 

[Nick JD]

I remember reading somewhere that the first 3 -> 15hrs (lag phase) after pitching yeast doesn't result in any nasty flavours coming out of your yeast but after that you open your brew up to some nasty flavours coming though..
So remember pitching high doesn't just kill yeast if you pitch to high and it stays high within the lag phase you could produce some unwelcomed flavour.

Found it..... from whitelabs

"The lag phase can be carried out at a higher temperature than the rest of fermentation because very little
flavor compounds are produced. Ethanol production is also very limited, therefore ester formation is not a
concern. Some brewers begin the lag phase for ales at 72-750F (21-24C) and complete the fermentation at 680F.
This can be done with success for lagers too, with starting the lag phase at 72-750F and lowering the
fermentation temperature to 50-550F(10-13C).
Brewers will not see any visible activity during the lag phase, hence the way it got its name. But this phase
is very important in building new healthy cells that will be able to complete fermentation. If the wort is
overpitched, this will decrease the lag phase, and each individual cell will not be as healthy at the end of
fermentation. Although it may feel reassuring to a homebrewer to see fermentation activity within one
hour of pitching yeast, it is not best for the yeast."

full artical http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/Yeast_Life_Cycle.pdf

Just another thing to think about when playing outside recommended fermenting temps.

Thanks for posting that. I've been trying to tell people that yeast don't make esters in the growth phase, but no one seems to get it. The common idea here is that if you pitch high you'll get esters. It's crap.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I pitch high (once I was in a flurry and pitched at 33 degrees - beer was fantastic) and never have an issue with esters or fusels - that is, so long as the worth continues to drop in temp after pitching until it reaches fermentation temp.

Other than the above quote by someone else, I have no scientific basis for this - but I'm finding it works very well for getting the yeast up and running (minimal lag phase), whilst avoiding the usual nasty flavours (and headaches) from fermenting at high temps.

The other thing that one opens themselves up to - is what happened to me when brewing a pils recently.

Got a great boil (as I usually do) and ended up with over gravity beer. So I put in no chill and waited until the next day. Stumbled out of bed, and when it came time to pitch the yeast - stupid me forgot to back dilute, to bring it down to the correct OG (yes, I adjust my hop additions for this).

So I now have a very nice Carlsberg Elephant clone in the keg, but it isn't what I wanted. Fortuitous accident though.

I suppose what I'm saying, is that this thread and the previous "Can I split between mash and boil" thread from Truman - both are based on "waiting" between 2 steps in brewing. And everytime you add a time period between 2 normally concurrent steps, you add in extra variables that can alter the end product for the worst (or in my case - at least not the end product I wanted).

Great to ask the questions - as it ensures the information is out there and you get the best result from others' experience. But I would conclude from the responses on both threads (and my personal experience) that the more you "split" up a brew day (or days), the more can go wrong.

Can you tell I'm bored at work today?

Goomba

 

[Truman42]

I suppose what I'm saying, is that this thread and the previous "Can I split between mash and boil" thread from Truman - both are based on "waiting" between 2 steps in brewing. And everytime you add a time period between 2 normally concurrent steps, you add in extra variables that can alter the end product for the worst (or in my case - at least not the end product I wanted).

Great to ask the questions - as it ensures the information is out there and you get the best result from others' experience. But I would conclude from the responses on both threads (and my personal experience) that the more you "split" up a brew day (or days), the more can go wrong.

Can you tell I'm bored at work today?

Goomba

Geat response Goomba, thats what a forum is for.

@ Gava..Your right, my starter had finsihed out as I was orignally going to brew on the weekend but couldnt. So I had pitched a dormant slurry at around 11.00pm last night. This morning at 6.00am the wort temp had dropped to 20C and the yeasties were up and partying.

So my lag phase probably didnt start until the wort had dropped to around 25 or lower anyway.

 

[gava]

pitching slurrry from the fridge to a wort around 25 may result in yeast shock and a longer lag phase, asumming you've just got the slurry from the fridge and pitched.

best bet to let the slurry come up to temp close to the wort and pitch..

Not sure if yeast shock produces any bad things I think it just puts the yeast behind the 8 ball before it had a chance to do anything.. I'll kick on in the end but you probably notice nothing for a longer period of time compared to a starter at wort temp.

gav

Geat response Goomba, thats what a forum is for.

@ Gava..Your right, my starter had finsihed out as I was orignally going to brew on the weekend but couldnt. So I had pitched a dormant slurry at around 11.00pm last night. This morning at 6.00am the wort temp had dropped to 20C and the yeasties were up and partying.

So my lag phase probably didnt start until the wort had dropped to around 25 or lower anyway.

 

[Truman42]

pitching slurrry from the fridge to a wort around 25 may result in yeast shock and a longer lag phase, asumming you've just got the slurry from the fridge and pitched.

No it wasnt direct from the fridge and I had warmed it up to 25C before pitching..