I’ve fermented a Helles lager at 68-70°F and it was delicious!
It would be interesting to see the results for strains that are known (or at least believed) to have more flavor variation due to pitching rates.
Cool, thanks guys. In the summer my IC even with prechiller can’t get me to lager temp, takes several hours in the fridge to get all the way down. Sounds like I can pitch 34/70 at room temperature, and move it into the fermentation chamber, and not really worry how cool I set it. Rediscovering dry yeast has me kind of giddy. Takes the hassle out of brewing and puts the emphasis back on fun, creativity, spontaneity.
How are you thinking that would differ between liquid and dry versions?
I’ve pitched 34/70 in the mid 60s and put it into my fermenting chamber at 52 many times. It gets down to the low 50s overnight and I see signs of fermentation shortly thereafter.
I’m wondering if the reducing pitching rate from rehydrating in wort would be more apparent in something less neutral than US-05, not that it would necessarily be any different from a liquid form of the same strain given the same pitching rate.
I think on the periphery of this topic is another question (your assumption?) that has to be answered first: does direct pitching in wort really kill some of the yeast, or is that outdated information? For that matter, does rehydrating first damage yeast? The article in the OP’s link suggests direct pitching does no damage, we’ll have to wait for the full report.
Until I recently acquired a chest freezer, all my fermentation control crapped out during a move. No clue why but both my fridges worked when I unplugged them and loaded them on the uhaul and didn’t work when I plugged them back in. But my basement stays in the mid to high 60’s and I started following both the warm fermented lager thread on HBT and the stuff Brulosophy has done so I just fermented at ambient temps. No problems, lager or ale. FWIW, I think DNA testing has shown that 34/70 is actually an ale strain that performs well at lower temps which explains why it does fine at higher temps as well.
OK, I know this might sound off the wall, but----
Maybe it’s the outlet that isn’t working.
Just a thought.
I have had success with pitching S-189@ 62F and slowlly moving it down to 149F. I can’t get it down to my normal 58 F pitching temp and I would like to be lower on my starting temp, but it has worked great to start high and drop to ferment temps over night…
Nope, both old fridges just gave it up! All good though, got a Best Buy special Insignia kegerator that I upgraded with an Intertap tower and picked up a chest freezer cheap at a yard sale that is now my fermentation chamber controlled by an STC 1000 build.
Sounds like I have a new SOP, direct pitch above 68°F as the manufacturer recommends, then let it drop to (whatever) temperature overnight. Funny how you get stuck on the conventional wisdom that flavor will be impaired if you pitch warm and then cool. Then again, it was conventional wisdom that you can’t direct pitch, or that dry yeast is inferior. I should have been tipped off by all the commercial brewers around here using dry yeast and direct pitching. BTW my ferment dropped to 64°F overnight even as activity shot up, has since climbed to 66°, and now at 30 hours the bubbling in the jar of Star San is not bubbling at all, it’s a buzz, sounds like a little 2-stroke model airplane engine in my fridge. I’m guessing that direct pitching does not kill or weaken yeast. 
Yep, mine is buzzing along now in the low 50’s this morning. I know a guy who is Siebel trained and he has won awards with his lagers over the years - it is his process exactly in terms of temperature. Start in the 60’s and lower it while it is getting active down into the 50’s. Of course, taste will be the real test. Here’s hoping it tastes great.
Cheers!
Well, 43 hours after pitching, and the S-04 has ripped mine down from 13°P to 4°P! They said it’s fast. Direct pitching works for me. Dry hopped and set ambient to 70°F.
Give the fridges a bit to settle the Freon out. They may very well work if just left for a few daze. Especially if jostled around during the move.
This is good advice, but it isn’t the refrigerant that settles, it’s the oil in the system, particularly in the compressor. If you had to lay the unit on its side, the oil needs some time to settle back to the bottom or else it may damage the compressor.
Sure, data can always be contradicted or invalidated, but we don’t typically used the word “assumption” to refer to the results of repeated hypothesis and controlled experiment. That’s a “theory”.
I just re-read it to make sure, and there’s no mention of either potential or observed viability effects.
The most interesting thing I noticed was the comparatively enormous error bars for the “W” trials - without any discussion of methods it’s hard to infer much from that other than that the results from the rehydrated samples were remarkably inconsistent. A large variation in ethanol content without a corresponding variation in ADF at least suggests contamination to me, and if that trial was also the one exhibiting outlier levels of VDKs and acetaldehyde that’s a smoking gun IMHO.
+1. I knew SOMETHING had to settle. LOL
Reading through the Fermentis website again, I see the no-need-to-rehydrate advice applies only to the yeasts labelled “E2U” easy to use, which is most but not all of their brewing products. They are specially prepared with a protective emulsion which prevents damage and loss of viable cells during rehydration in wort, it seems; hence there is no difference in effective pitch rate between various methods including DP. So in effect, there should be no pitch rate-related differences in performance or flavor – at least with these yeasts. Presumably rehydration in water is still advisable for other yeasts and other manufacturers’ products, and the familiar, necessary assumptions about losses in direct pitching still apply there. (I hadn’t noticed this was a supposedly new thing until I realized not all their strains are labelled E2U.)
A friend who worked for them for many years maintains that neither hydration nor aeration is necessary. I believe him.