I pitched hot

I pitched on the high side and my cooling device broke, So my fermentation started at 85 degrees. Upon going down into the basement I saw this dilemma. I fixed the problem and started cooling all over again and got it down to 72 in about 6 hours. How long does it take for off flavors to develop being that it was at this high temp fermenting vigorously for about 14 hours.

Unfortunately, the off flavors from pitching high tend to develop when the wort is “fermenting vigorously”, of which you evidently had 14 hours worth.  Probably gonna get some off flavors but just be patient and let it completely finish fermenting.  Once it’s done, you may even want to give it a little extra time back at a warmer temp to give the yeast a chance to clean up some.  In any case, it’s most likely not ruined, so just RDWHAHB.

Thank you. It smells good at least. Gonna let it ride.

FTR, I can only chill my wort down to about 80 degrees during the summer. I run into the fermenters and finish chilling down the low 60s (for most ales) in my chest freezer with the temp controller set at ~ 40 before aerating and pitching. You can achieve the same thing with an ice bath. It takes a few extra hours but the extra lag is way better that the mistake of starting fermentation off too warm.

+1  As the weather’s gotten warmer, the temp I can reach with the chiller has gone up.  I pop the fermenter in the “Son of fermentation chiller” and continue the cooling.  Sometimes to the point that I don’t end up pitching til the next day.

yeah, i checked the temp of the water coming out of my faucet last time i brewed and it was close to 80 degrees.

Same thing here in LA, so I make life slightly more complicated.

After running through the CFC, I run the wort into a small IC that’s sitting in a bucket of ice water. As long as I keep the ice water moving, the temp drops to the low 60’s with about 25 lbs of ice working for the 10 gallon batch length.

One more reason to love living in OR and having a well…water temp never gets above 60F.

Now that summer is setting in I can only chill to 70ish. I use my chest freezer with a Johnson controller to get the wort down to pitching temps. It works really well for me. There are alot of folks who use swamp coolers with great success. That’s another option. I wish I had well water to get the wort cooler but the chest works fine.

I’m investing in a counter flow chiller and a pump. This is never gonna happen again. Luckily the ground water never gets to hot in the bay area.