How to Brew Beer

Step 14 Adding yeast

Once the wort has cooled to about room temperature you can add the yeast. It can get a better start if you cool a pint of the wort in a seperate glass and then add the yeast to the pint of wort. Once it's given a start in there you can add it to the room temperature wort. In this case we waited overnight before the pint of yeast mix was added to the fermenting bin. This is also known as pitching the yeast.

Comments

[bluenevus]

I've read that it's good to accelerate the chilling of the wort, but I don't know why. Have you tried doing this? Do you have any untoward effects from letting the wort cool overnight?

[xxburton182]

The point of chilling the wort is to get it to a temperature that makes it acceptable to add the yeast in (too hot and the yeast will die). The longer you wait to get it fermenting the more problems you can encounter with things like bacteria and wild yeasts getting into the wort. So basically the faster the better. Happy Brewing!

[mattsanford]

The point of chilling the wort quickly is to acheive a cold break, where the protiens in the wort coagulate and fall out of solution. Of all the brewing materials I've read the www.howtobrew.com website (and book) by John Palmer are by far the most scientific about the hows and whys of brewing. He definitely views it from the perspective of an engineer - good reading and reference, in my opinion. Yay Beer!

[wingman358]

i have been searching for an engineering approach to brewing, so thanks for passing on the great link: www.howtobrew.com cheers!

[Jalakahops]

I've found that in a 70 degree house 5 gallons will cool at a rate of about 2 degrees per hour. In case you are just too eager to wait overnight.