Feeling defeated

Nothing you did sounds like it will ruin your beer.

I normally set my ale yeast out early during the brewing process to get the yeast close to pitching temp.

Sounds like you just need to work on your process a bit, especially the cooling of your wort.

 

Relax man, you didn´t do something terrible with this brew. Assuming you have pitched an Ale yeast let it cold down to a proper fermentation temp, I guess fermentation will start high due the high temp of pitching. It is possible you will need to age this beer a bit longer due high diacetyl production but nothing more than that. If you sanitized the elements correctly the risk of infection is relatively low. Never discard a beer until you are absolutly sure it is undrinkable !!!!

 

Not ideal, but not devastating either, assuming the amount of yeast you were using was otherwise appropriate to the batch size and gravity.

Ice baths aren't very efficient. I'd say your risk of infection was low. But I'd look into an immersion chiller.

85F won't hurt the yeast. In fact, they'll love it. But you will likely have elevated esters in your beer, and possibly fusel alcohols. Time will tell.

You won't have to wait three months, unless you're making an unusual style of beer. What process are you thinking will take that long?

 

Regarding the smack pack, I often smack the pack the night before a brew (or the night before making a starter) and leave the package at room temperature all night (at least 12 hours). It's sealed, so there will be no adverse effect.

Regarding the ice bath - it would have cooled down much more rapidly if you had stirred the beer while it is cooling (others will tell you that stirring risks infections - I have done this for many years - however with a wort chiller - with never once having an infection). You should also stir the water in the bath (using a different stir paddle) since you can get pockets of warm water adjacent to the bucket. You also might need to add more ice as it melts.

Other than pitching a little on the high side (you should do a diacetyl rest), you shouldn't have any noticeable problems with your beer.

 

Don't be defeated!

I once didn't finish a brew until the sun came up...

You can create a wort chiller that hooks up to a faucet no problem.

Just learn something new with each brew!

Totally keep that beer!

 

Pitching at 85F is a recipe for rocket fuel. Sorry.

 

Wouldn't that just be for 'fermenting' at 85F?

 

When I used to ice bath, I would ice bath inside of the kettle rather than the fermenter. Assuming you are using a plastic fermenter, the steel kettle is a much better conductor of temperatures, and will transfer the ice temperatures to the wort much more effectively. Also, to save on ice, you can rotate the water in just a plain cold water bath to get the wort down to about 140 or so fairly quickly, then starting adding ice after that to get it the rest of the way. As others have mentioned, stirring the wort during this process is key. You want as much of that wort coming into contact with the cold outside of the kettle as possible, otherwise it will definitely take hours to get down to temperature.

 

Fermentation can start a lot faster when pitching hot. I'll bet some fermentation occurred in the 80s.

If the temperature of the room was in the 70s, the most important part of the fermentation occurred above 75F. This can increase acetaldahyde by 20x. It will also increase esters and fusels.

It also depends on what yeast strain was used and whether or not there was any form of temperature control other than Texas room temperature. If this was American ale yeast without temperature control set to 64-68F, the likelihood of this being a clean, smooth beer is low.

 

RDWHAHB.

 

Exactly. I have done some questionable things and still wound up with tasty beer.

 

Are all dry yeast packets to be smacked? I've never smacked one.

 

And most ester production is produced within the first 24hrs. Probably going to have some off flavors in there.

 

No. They were referring to Wyeast liquid yeast smack-packs. Smacking a dry yeast pack won't do anything, except maybe break it open, I guess.

 

Sort of agree, though it would be more accurate to say that early conditions largely determine the final ester profile. That's because the yeast first make fusels and other alcohols that are later converted to esters. So lots of fusels early on leads to lots of esters later.

 

Other than RDWHAHB, this advice will serve you well. Some improvements will have huge impacts and some will have modest. You have to keep brewing and avoid making the same mistake twice. You brew a batch, but each batch is an "experience investment" that you apply going forward. So what if you have to dump it. You didn't set out to brew 1 batch of beer per lifetime I'm assuming. Start the process of improvements and start getting the next batch on deck.

 

One thing I learned early on from some mistakes I made was don't try to brew with new equipment/process at night. Too many possibilities for the 3 hour brew day to become a 5 hour brew day and fatigue set in. Always give yourself ample time to brew when making big changes, especially equipment you aren't totally comfortable with yet.

 

You should smack them around a bit to show them who's in charge

 

This is not my week with the crystal ball, so I'm not gonna tell how it'll taste, like others have done. I would tell you to expect the worst, but that's already been covered, too (lighten up people!). I wouldn't sweat it until after you've tasted it. It may be just fine. You made a few mistakes, but none of them is necessarily a show stopper. You may get some fusel alcohols, or you may not. You may get some undesirable esters, or you may not. It may not be your proudest beer yet, then again, it may be. Worst case, you'll learn how, and to what extent, some of these mistakes affect the beer, so, even if it turns out to be a drain pour (doubtful), you will still have gotten some benefit from it. RDWHAHB