I have been trying to read up on this subject lately and have come across numerous opinions, suggestions, instructions…ect.
Some say to pitch your yeast after you have cooled your wort to room temp and then place in keezer (or wherever you are going to ferment your beer) and let the temp come down to whatever your set up is. Others say you should not pitch your yeast into wort that is above your desired fermenting temp. So here is my question: Why not cool the wort as best as I can with my wort chiller, transfer to my fermenting bucket, seal it up, add air lock, and place in keezer for X amount of hours to get to desired fermenting temperature THEN pitch the yeast. Why is it (or IS it) so important to get the yeast into the wort so quickly? If everything is sanitized, what would the problem be in letting the wort sit with no yeast for a day while it cools to ~50 and then pitch the yeast?
I have done nothing but Ale’s so far but now I have a temp controlled freezer for Lagering and I just can not seem to get this question out of my head. Does it really matter? If so, why?
I’ve done it many times since I don’t have a wort chiller. I get the wort below 100*F and put in the freezer over night. By morning, it’s at the right temp and I pitch.
+1 to the above. If you have the ability to cool down to 45-50F or so, then do so and pitch. If not, let it cool overnight in your fridge and then pitch in the morning. All things being equal, you want to pitch your yeast as soon as possible to get it working and limiting the time when bacteria can grow. If your sanitation practices are good, then you’ll be fine letting it cool over night.
I’ve read in multiple places some would recommend pitching around 60F then cooling once active fermentation begins, but this goes against many other principles/ideas.
For lagers I often have to leave the wort outside in the cold overnight and pitch the yeast the next morning. This seems to work fine. For ales, this is seldom necessary unless I brewed really late (past midnight) and I didn’t feel like waiting for the ale wort to cool before pitching.
I do think the key that the award-winning homebrewers are stressing is that yes, at least with lagers, you always want to pitch your yeast cold and then allow to warm up slightly afterwards if necessary. You do not want to pitch warm and then cool down. And this makes sense because declining temperatures would tend to cause the yeast to calm down and settle out, which is precisely the opposite of what you want at the beginning of fermentation, when you want to get the yeast used to their new cool environment, and to grow and multiply with the ability to withstand the cool temperatures.
With ales, this doesn’t matter quite as much because nearly all yeasts will ferment just fine at temperatures anywhere from like 65 to 95 F. In other words, I don’t mind it too much if I pitch an ale yeast at 80 F and allow this to fall to 65 F (which is probably about the best fermentation temp for many ales, if not 62 F, something like that). Personally I don’t see warm pitching as quite as big of a deal with ales. The yeast won’t settle out very much as the beer cools, and might even get a faster start if pitched warm and allowed to cool to 65 F.
I think the idea of pitching warm is to coax them into a faster reproduction phase. If you can accurately predict the lag time (which is yeast making yeast babies), then this would be fine. The only problem is that it’s difficult to predict lag time, which most homebrewers can attest to. The problem with pitching warm is if the yeast start consuming sugars at a higher temperature, they will produce more esters and fusels.
I’m also in the camp of “cool it to fermentation temperature, then pitch” I’s normally in the AM of the next day for me. I use the same water bath for fermenting as I do for wort cooling:
