Hey everyone, so I made a batch last night, and had to pitch my yeast(~200 billion cells) at around 95-100 degrees. I know that it was not optimal. i then placed the carboy in a cool place, and the temperature began to drop. When i checked this morning (about 8 hours after pitching) there was no activity at all, and the temp was around 65-70. My question is would it be detrimental to pitch another packet of yeast if there is no activity when i get home in 8 hours( 16 hours total), or should i just leave it alone?
Some batches of beer can take a while (e.g., 24 hours) before the first signs of fermentation temperature is evident. I would recommend that you be patient and give it more time. Cheers!
Why would you pitch it at that high of a temp? It might turn out fine. Patience is a very very good quality to have in brewing.
Along with Jay, I have to question your statement that you "had to pitch" at 95dF. If you were able to check in on the wort this morning, you could have just pitched then. Before I had a good means of chilling wort to lager pitching temps, I would often knock out at ~70dF and then just wait for the wort to get to ~50dF until pitching. Any Aussies around?
I've pitched in the 90's with no ill effect mostly due to it being hot outside and not wanting to wait over an hour to get cooled down. As vikeman said, leave it be. If its cooled down to your ferm temp, where you want it to be now, it will take off. It is possible to pitch yeast after it has cooled down for a long time(overnight) just keep it covered til you decide to pitch.
Get a pre-chiller for your wort chiller and quit screwing around already. Have ice ready, but let the beer get down to about 110-100F before you toss the ice on the pre-chiller. This saves ice, and if you don't have enough ice and dump it on the pre-chiller when the wort is 211.9F, you might melt it all before your entire wort gets to pitching temps (i.e. you won't have enough). My pre-chiller kicks ass, and it's just five coils of copper molded into about the size of a bucket, inline before the wort chiller. I scrounged up the copper by offering a little free beer, and tubing is cheep. Maybe this time you'll get good beer pitching way too high, but I suspect there's a reason why pitching temperatures are set the way they are. Patience and adequate tools are needed for brewing. Without them, you're at best rolling the dice, which BTW the house has an advantage* on, so your expected value is negative. If you don't have a wort-chiller, <searches for rolleye emoticon> *regardless of what some guy told you about how he won in vegas
