Pitching temp

RAtkison

RAtkison

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I've had no luck cooling off to below 75-78 degrees here in TX during the summer. I use a dual inline immersion chiller setup, the first being in a bucket of ice water, I constantly add ice to, and the second being in my keggle. I know how important it is to pitch at proper temp (commonly +/- 68 degrees for the ales I've been brewing) so would it be better to place the vessel in my fermenting cooler over night and wait until the wort temperature drops to pitching temperature prior to adding yeast? Is the only concern is contamination?
 
Some people like to pitch a few degrees warmer so the yeast can get going in a hurry. I wouldn’t sweat the 75-78°, but that’s just me.
 
I've put the fermenter in the fridge overnite to cool it the rest of the way before. Had no problems. As long as everything is sanitized you will be good.
 
Even in Alberta I've been having trouble getting cool enough, I've left a carboy overnight to cool a few times with no negative outcome.
 
Hogarthe said:
I've put the fermenter in the fridge overnite to cool it the rest of the way before. Had no problems. As long as everything is sanitized you will be good.
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I'd add, "and you haven't oxygenated the wort." To get my worts cool enough to pitch, I either use an ice water bath for my 3-gallon batches or an aquarium pump pushing ice water through my wort chiller for my 6-gallon batches. Either way will get the temp down below the pitch temperature, which is where conventional wisdom and my experience say you want it. The reason given for pitching below the fermentation temperature, for lagers, anyway, is to limit diacetyl production. So if you pitch warm, give your beer a diacetyl rest at the end and you should be just as well off as if you chilled it below pitch temperature. With the addition of a diacetyl rest - warming the beer into the high 60's or low 70's for a couple days before fermentation completely stops, I'd agree with Jeffpn - don't sweat it.
 
The way I beat the heat is with a 2-stage cooling. Ground water either through a chiller plate (or, currently through my immersed HERMS tube) and recirculating/whirlpooling back into the boil kettle will get down to about 98. From there I can go through a chiller plate with ice water pumping through it and get down as low as 60 (with enough ice) directly into the fermenter..
You could do the same thing with your 2 coil chillers...just drop the temp as much as possible in the boil vessel with ground water and then move to the ice. Moving the wort is key if you're not stirring or whirlpooling, it's just not as effective.
 
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whirlpool down to about 160f, I also I freeze a 5 gallon bucket solid, I have one frozen now waiting for brewday, I add that to my hlt fill it with water then pump my wort through the coils very slow, for a 12 gallon batch it equalizes out to 70, if I add a couple of bags of ice I can get down to 60F in about 20 minutes, I only use about 15 gallons of water that way
 
I had this same issue a few days ago. Brewed an ale and with my setup i have a fish tank pump recirculating ice cold water through chiller and could not get my wort to cool past 80. The ice in my cooler would melt faster than it would cool. (didn't have enough ice on hand, and i was running out of time before i had to leave the house)

I had to leave my wort in my glass carboy in my fermentation chamber with bung and airlock thats set to 68 and let it sit about 20 hours to let it cool to temp before i was able to shake it up and pitch my yeast.. and i can confirm that the yeast is thriving and going crazy right now.

Hope this helps!
 
I get the wort down to 80-90 degrees F using tap water and an immersion chiller, then I make an ice bath and use a pond pump to pump the cold water through the chiller. I generally pitch below my fermentation temperature so when I'm doing summer lagers, I'm chilling down to 50 degrees F or cooler. Takes a while but not nearly as much water.
 
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I get it as cool as I can with my immersion chiller. I put it in the fermenter and finish it off in the chest freezer. Oxygenate and pitch n the morning. Hope I'm not offending the brew gods.

It makes me really nervous messing around with cool wort in an uncovered kettle. I contaminated a batch with wild yeast once. My son said it tasted like a farmhouse ale but I just thought it tasted funky.
 
Just chill it to whatever I can in 20 minutes or so and then transfer and put into the fermentation fridge. Pitch later that night or the next morning when the temp. is right. Just recently started using a thermowell and it really makes a difference in how quickly it cools down compared to using ambient temp. for the probe.. Another option is to transfer into the fermenter and then use an ice bath.
 
Keep in mind that if you're cooling slowly over time that as the wort shrinks, you'll have suck back through the airlock. Make sure during the cool down stage to use a bubble style airlock.
Cheers,
Brian
 
ChicoBrewer said:
I get it as cool as I can with my immersion chiller. I put it in the fermenter and finish it off in the chest freezer. Oxygenate and pitch n the morning. Hope I'm not offending the brew gods.

It makes me really nervous messing around with cool wort in an uncovered kettle. I contaminated a batch with wild yeast once. My son said it tasted like a farmhouse ale but I just thought it tasted funky.
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Unoxygenated and cool, you should be okay. Keep it covered - it was mostly sterile from the boil. It has no oxygen so about the only thing that could grow would be lactobacillus or wild yeast and they will be overwhelmed in the morning with your yeast.

By the way, there is a difference between farmhouse ale and contaminated. One tastes good, the other does not.
 
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