Wort Not Cooled below 80

[saucedoa]

I just finished brewing a Honey Porter recipe, however, the wort was not completely cooled under the recommended 80 degrees. I pitched the yeast and sealed the bucket. What happens if the wort is above the recommended temperature?

 

[dryboroughbrewing]

You'll likely produce unpleasant off-flavors in the form of esters and fusels. . In the future, just seal your fermenter and wait till the next day to pitch, so long as your sanitation is decent you shouldn't have an issue.

 

[Sayers]

If the wort is to hot (+120F) you can injure or kill the yeast. It is always a good idea to pitch the yeast at or below the fermentation temp. If you start hot it can cause hot alcohol flavours. I wouldn't worry about it to much this time. As long as your sanitation is good it should be good. But if you control your fermentation better, it willl make good great.

 

[thehopbandit]

I have had this happen on a couple different occasions (pitching around 80F). The beers actually came out pretty good but I did try to get the temp of the fermenter down as quick as possible after pitching. I stuck the fermenter in an ice bath to rapidly bring down the temperature. It dropped to where I needed it to be in about 5 hours or so.

You didn't mention what temp it was at, but I hope it wasn't much warmer than that.

As for what will happen, it varies depending on the type of beer and yeast. Generally, fermenting at too warm of temperatures will result in the production of off-flavors and esters. You can probably expect to taste a lot of these if the fermentation stays up in that range.

In the future, you might consider sealing the fermenter and waiting for the wort to cool further before pitching the yeast. Some people let it cool for a good while until it gets down to pitching temps.

 

[saucedoa]

The temperature was between about 90-95 degrees. Hopefully it doesn't affect it much. Since I ran out of ice I have the bucket in front of a vent with the ac on blast trying to cool it as soon as possible. Thank you everyone for your input.

 

[thehopbandit]

The temperature was between about 90-95 degrees. Hopefully it doesn't affect it much. Since I ran out of ice I have the bucket in front of a vent with the ac on blast trying to cool it as soon as possible. Thank you everyone for your input.

Honestly, you would be better off running tap water as cold as possible into your bathtub and setting your fermenter in there. That's what I did when I pitched too warm. Liquid will transfer heat much better than air. You can also drape a t-shirt or towel over the fermenter with part of it in the water. It will wick up moisture and take advantage of evaporative cooling.