Being one who usually hydrates his dry yeast (as it seems slightly preferred by the manufacturers) has raised a question for me when considering the temp of the re-hydrated yeast vs. that of the cooled wort. Wouldn’t pitching the yeast re-hydrated in ~80-ish degree into a wort in the mid-60’s shock the yeast pretty good?
Yeast fare better pitched into warmer wort and the above scenario is quite a difference in the other direction. Being nervous I’ll shock the yeast, I usually let the re-hydrated cream sit at room temp (maybe 30-45 mins) to better atemperate to the temp of the wort, but wondering if there’s any other wisdom out there on this scenario?
I agree with Maticulous. I rehydrated 3 packs Nottingham at 95F. Left it sit for about 30 minutes then pitched into 10 gallons of wort which was at 77F. I had vigorous (and I do mean vigorous) bubbling within 6 hours.
While yeast may like being pitched into warmer wort, beer flavor generally does not. My experience is that the beer turns out much better if I pitch when the wort is in the low 60s, in general. Also, pitching warmer yeast into cooler wort can be a bad idea (I understand), but cooler yeast into warmer wort can be a good thing. I’d cool down your rehydrated yeast so that it’s below the temp of the wort before pitching.
Bad idea, in my opinion based on my experience. Cool your lager to a bit below your fermentation temp, then pitch. My results have been much better since I started doing that.
Thanks all. I’ve not had issues with off or slow fermentations, so I’m assuming I’m fine, but seem to remember attemperating the yeast to the wort’s temp (+- 5F) as being stressed as optimal in a podcast at some point and just started thinking about it more. I’m usually within ~5F of wort temp with my yeast cream.
I’m with you Denny on low 60’s pitching - I like that too, but got me thinking that my neither my dry yeast or liquid starters are that cool at pitching, I’ll have to play around with cooling them down and see what transpires…
They are also talking about pitching only one pack. You need more like four to pitch at 48 (or two packs of dry yeast.). I step up a 2L starter to near one gallon and pitch them at 48-50F. Most of my lagers are at FG in 7-10 days.
I don’t see why the manufacturers don’t want to sell more yeast, but for some reason, they don’t estimate the lagers correctly according to Jamil’s program. I would rather have a vigorous fermentation than a sluggish one (admittedly, some beers will taste fine even if underpitched slightly and certain styles are best underpitched). So cooling both the wort and the yeast to below fermentation temperatures and then pitching at or above the right amount of cells and allowing the temperature to rise to the correct temperature always seems to work best for me.
Yes, but then why refer to it as a “sufficiently pitchable number of cells”, when sometimes (lagers, e.g.) it is woefully inadequate? Why not sell it as a starter level for 5 gallons and encourage the use of starters?
My misunderstanding. I’d been reading the posts in this thread about “sufficiently pitchable number of cells” and manufacturers claims and such so I had liquid yeast on my brain.