Pitching Temp?

[Tadge]

Gday Guys,

Just put down another brew, but after all the boiling of ingredients the wort is sitting at 30C. I refridgerated 15L of water but obviously not enough! Im waiting to pitch the yeast but at this rate it will be tomorrow!! What do you think the highest temp I will get away with pitching K 97 wheat yeast? Am I more prone to infections while waiting?

Cheers
Tadge

[rwh]

Just pitch it now. Most yeasts can survive up to at least body temperature, and probably beyond.

[Link]

I had the same drama with my last brew. I put it in a sink of cold water and ice with a wet towel over it for a couple of hours. Got the temp down to about 25, then pitched...

Good luck.

[Tadge]

Cheers, Done.

Link, I may be a little pedantic but I hate getting crap in the tap doing that. I tried glad wrap but it still gets in there. As I said though, I'm probably being a bit too cautious.

Tadge

[Pale_Ale]

Just pitch at 30C and work at getting the temp lower over the next few hours. The yeast would not be producing any esters in that time...

[morgs]

Your best leaving the lid on the pot and sitting it in the sink before adding to fermentor.

[vitalogy]

Yep, better to pitch early & warm than later and cool to avoid infections. As long as it cools down in the next 24 hours it'll be fine.

[melbourne man]

what is the optimum pitching temp? about 26 degrees?

[Pale_Ale]

Yeah IMO, probably 25 or so, even with lagers as it gets them off to a good start and as long as you work at cooling it within 24 hours you should be fine

[beernut]

Even with C/F chiller, pitching temp for wort will only be as cool as the temp. of your tap water.Could be 8c in winter to 23c in summer.
Just pitch with lots of active yeast ASAP.I've noticed that lagers pitched at
24c and already underway will raise their temp a few degrees in the first few hours even in a fridge set to 5c, just because of the activity of the yeasties.It's amazing to feel the extra heat coming off the fermenter.
Cheers Glenn

[Aussie Claret]

DON'T pitch at 30c as you will end up with undesireable esters from the yeast. Additionally if you pitch at 30c the temperature is very unlikely to drop (unless refridgerated). If you pitch K97 at 30c expect a very dominant yeast flavour.

Leave it to cool to a more realistic pitching temperature, for a wheat yeast you want to be fermenting at around 22c.

You can pitch yeast at 30c as RWH had said and the yeast will survive; however if you want to make excellent beer control the fermentation temperatures and pitching temperatures. The idea is to make good beer, better beer and one you want to make again, following poor advice will result in poor beer.

Sorry but some advice given is absolutely shocking.

AC

[Pale_Ale]

I recently pitched an ale @ 28 and had it cooled down to 22 within a few hours. I used ice bricks underneath the fermenter accompanied by a wet towe and some ice in a bath. It then dropped further overnight. IMO this sort of timeframe is acceptable and a recent tasting of the beer shows very little esters.

[geoffclifton]

I just tackled this yesterday as I had a strange desire to improve on dry sprinkling at 29* although that's always worked.

I made two batches and put the fermenters at 29* in the brewfridge. Then I got a bit hasty and rehydrated the yeasts (2) in warm water and then read the book - whoops 'should be pitched within half an hour'.

So at half an hour I fed each yeast jar half a tsp of ldme. Over two hours they had foamed and settled but the wort was coming down at just 1* per hour. So I went out for a beer, came home and ended up pitching into 21* some six hours after rehydrating and feeding.

This morning I have airlock activity but I seriously wonder if it was worth the effort,

Cheers, Geoff.

[Ed]

DON'T pitch at 30c as you will end up with undesireable esters from the yeast. Additionally if you pitch at 30c the temperature is very unlikely to drop (unless refridgerated). If you pitch K97 at 30c expect a very dominant yeast flavour.

Leave it to cool to a more realistic pitching temperature, for a wheat yeast you want to be fermenting at around 22c.

You can pitch yeast at 30c as RWH had said and the yeast will survive; however if you want to make excellent beer control the fermentation temperatures and pitching temperatures. The idea is to make good beer, better beer and one you want to make again, following poor advice will result in poor beer.

Sorry but some advice given is absolutely shocking.

AC

Agree wholeheartedly.

Cheers, Ed

[vitalogy]

DON'T pitch at 30c as you will end up with undesireable esters from the yeast. Additionally if you pitch at 30c the temperature is very unlikely to drop (unless refridgerated). If you pitch K97 at 30c expect a very dominant yeast flavour.

Leave it to cool to a more realistic pitching temperature, for a wheat yeast you want to be fermenting at around 22c.

You can pitch yeast at 30c as RWH had said and the yeast will survive; however if you want to make excellent beer control the fermentation temperatures and pitching temperatures. The idea is to make good beer, better beer and one you want to make again, following poor advice will result in poor beer.

Sorry but some advice given is absolutely shocking.

AC

While I agree it's probably not optimal to pitch at 30 then letting it cool, surely by not pitching until it cools you're increasing the risk of any wild bacteria that is present infecting the wort?

Keep in mind nobody's advocating fermenting the entire time at 30deg, simply pitching at this temp and then getting to desired fermenting temp asap.

It's untrue that the wort won't cool if you pitch at 30 either. The brew I've currently got going was pitched at 28 at 9pm at night, at 7am next morning it was bubbling away at 20, where it's remained since. Now surely in that 10 hour timeframe it's hasn't produced any more esters than can be cleaned up during conditioning?

[Ash]

In the destructions for rehydrating yeast, don't they suggest about 30*c?

Sprinkling onto 30*c wort that you start chilling straight away is just rehydrating in the fermenter is it not?

[Aussie Claret]

DON'T pitch at 30c as you will end up with undesireable esters from the yeast. Additionally if you pitch at 30c the temperature is very unlikely to drop (unless refridgerated). If you pitch K97 at 30c expect a very dominant yeast flavour.

Leave it to cool to a more realistic pitching temperature, for a wheat yeast you want to be fermenting at around 22c.

You can pitch yeast at 30c as RWH had said and the yeast will survive; however if you want to make excellent beer control the fermentation temperatures and pitching temperatures. The idea is to make good beer, better beer and one you want to make again, following poor advice will result in poor beer.

Sorry but some advice given is absolutely shocking.

AC

While I agree it's probably not optimal to pitch at 30 then letting it cool, surely by not pitching until it cools you're increasing the risk of any wild bacteria that is present infecting the wort?

Keep in mind nobody's advocating fermenting the entire time at 30deg, simply pitching at this temp and then getting to desired fermenting temp asap.

It's untrue that the wort won't cool if you pitch at 30 either. The brew I've currently got going was pitched at 28 at 9pm at night, at 7am next morning it was bubbling away at 20, where it's remained since. Now surely in that 10 hour timeframe it's hasn't produced any more esters than can be cleaned up during conditioning?

The advantages of living in Tassie I suppose where ambient temps are very mild, if you have ambient temps of around 25c, the temperature during fermentation (being exothermic) will always be above this. (if you dont ferment in the fridge that is) and ferment at ambient temps.

Esters are produced at all times during fermentation, some of which won't be cleaned up, if you're prepared to take chances then pitch at 30c, personally I think it a poor practice.

Oh and rehydrating is completely different to fermenting.

So long as you keep your fermenter sanitized and air tight the possibility of and infection is minimal. I'm not advocating storing the wort for extended times in this manner, but for a 12 hour or so period where you can reduce temps to low 20's.

I'm simply giving advice contrary to other peoples and I can assure you the results will be better, not wanting to start an arguement.

AC

[vitalogy]

[snipped]

[snipped]

The advantages of living in Tassie I suppose where ambient temps are very mild, if you have ambient temps of around 25c, the temperature during fermentation (being exothermic) will always be above this. (if you dont ferment in the fridge that is) and ferment at ambient temps.

Esters are produced at all times during fermentation, some of which won't be cleaned up, if you're prepared to take chances then pitch at 30c, personally I think it a poor practice.

Oh and rehydrating is completely different to fermenting.

So long as you keep your fermenter sanitized and air tight the possibility of and infection is minimal. I'm not advocating storing the wort for extended times in this manner, but for a 12 hour or so period where you can reduce temps to low 20's.

I'm simply giving advice contrary to other peoples and I can assure you the results will be better, not wanting to start an arguement.

AC

Fair enough AC, I've just always seen contrary advice being given.

I've never given the two approaches a side-by-side comparision so can't comment on which one is better, I suppose it's just the idea that, during filling the fermenter and stirring/aerating the wort there's a good chance some bugs get in there no matter how well sterilised the fermenter.

I guess it's just one of those disadvantages faced by those of us without any elaborate temperature control

[Longrasser]

The advantages of living in Tassie I suppose where ambient temps are very mild, if you have ambient temps of around 25c,

Bollox ..I was there one so called summer and never got me jumper off