Secret Santa Stout: Pitching the yeast

You may remember that in my first brew, I had an issue with my wort cooling down too fast, which other homebrewers on the internet told me was a problem they would kill to have. But it was odd all the same. My wort cooled to 58 degrees in a matter of minutes, which is sub-optimal for yeast, but ultimately not a problem.

Rather than doing anything different this time, I went with the assumption that I had, in fact, done something wrong the last time. I repeated the same steps, hoping for a different result, which I understand is the mark of sanity. (Did I get that wrong?) When the boil was done, I put the pot in a sink full of cool, but not cold, water, and stirred it occasionally to try to let more heat escape. The water in the sink heated up almost immediately, which was not a surprise but was fun all the same.

In the meantime, I added 3.5 gallons of cold water to my primary fermenter, a 7.8-gallon bucket. When the temperature of the wort was down to about 140 degrees, I poured it into the bucket as well and stirred both to aerate and to cool the mixture. Within a few minutes, I had a reading of about 75 degrees. Perfect. I also had a liquid yeast this time, instead of the dry yeast I had last time, so instead of activating it, I simply had to shake the vial and then dump it into the wort.

Next, it was time for the first specific gravity reading. I have trouble with this, because the liquid in the flask is always frothy, and I can't see the line on the hydrometer. After a few minutes, we ascertained an initial reading of 1.076, at 72-degrees. That equates roughly to a reading of 1.080 at 60 degrees, which is what the hydrometer is keyed to, and dead on target for the recipe. If you recall how all this went the last time, you'll agree that things were going much more smoothly for Santa.

I closed the lid on the bucket, attached a fermentation lock, and set it in the basement. Nothing to do but sit back and let those yeasts do their work. And if you're thinking that all of this seems a little too good to be true -- you're right!

Pitching a fit

I don't have any pictures of the next phase of the brewing process, when I took the wort off the heat and pitched my yeast. Why? Well, because it, uh, didn't go so well.

Once again, the instructions I had received with my kit didn't sync up with the advice that Charlie Papazian gives in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Earlier, I had disregarded the kit's directions in favor of Papazian's, with success. Maybe it was in the spirit of fair play that, this time, I followed the kit instead of Papazian. Big mistake.

The directions with the kit recommended submerging the stock pot in a bathtub full of cold water when it came off the heat, for 10-15 minutes. I didn't have a bathtub handy, so I filled up my sink about halfway with cold water and stuck the pot in there once the wort was finished boiling. In the meantime, I added three gallons of cold water to my fermentation bucket. Papazian recommended pouring the boiling wort directly into the fermenter, but that sounded crazy!

Note to self: Never doubt Charlie Papazian again.

I was impatient. By 9 minutes, I took the stock pot out of the water and poured the wort into the fermenter. Then I added the remaining gallon and a half or so of water. I had previously added my 15g of yeast to 1/2 cup of lukewarm water to activate it, so all I needed was for the wort to reach the target temperature before I could add it. I was excited, not least because I knew that brewers called this part of the process "pitching the yeast" and I was excited to use the lingo.

"Honey!" I called to my wife. "I'm pitching my yeast!"

As soon as I stick my spoon and hand (I have a small spoon) into the wort to stir vigorously, as the directions advised, I knew something was wrong. You are supposed to pitch your yeast when it's at 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit, but this felt much colder than that.

Previously, I had used the thermometer that came with my brewing kit to measure the hot wort right off the stove. It wasn't sanitized afterward. I sighed and figured I at least ought to wipe it off before using it again. I grabbed a piece of paper towel. The second I touched it to the tip of the thermometer, the thing exploded. The little black spheres inside it -- who knows what they were made of -- spilled all over the counter. I had used this thermometer once, for about five seconds, and now it was broken. At least it didn't blow up in my beer, I guess.

First, I thought a candy thermometer might make a suitable replacement, but it turns out that those don't measure below 100 degrees F. Next I tried a meat thermometer, which read about 57 F, far lower than the 70-80 it was supposed to be. Was the thermometer accurate? I have no idea. But I had no other way to tell.

On the plus side, 60 degrees F is the appropriate temperature to measure your brew's specific gravity, which was the next step in the process, so even if my yeast was fucked, at least this ought to work. The kit also comes with a hydrometer, which I'm pretty sure I last used in eight-grade science class, and I think I hated it then, too. I filled up a beaker with some of my prenatal beer, dropped in the hydrometer, and spun it to dislodge air bubbles, just as the book said.

The directions said that my beer's specific gravity should have measured 1.035-1.040. It measured 1.050.

That's not a little bit off. That's way off. And I didn't need to correct for temperature, either, because the hydrometer was just about zeroed out.

What happened? What went wrong? I have no idea. Nothing bothers me more than when I think I've followed directions, and things don't work out. Granted, I obviously brought the temperature down too fast, but I wouldn't imagined that would have such an outsized effect.

Now, I worried. Would my yeast activate? Should I wait to bottle my brew until it reaches the final specific gravity that the recipe recommends, or until it drops by the amount that the recipe recommends? Again: they don't tell you this stuff.

I had no other choice. I closed the lid on the bucket, attached the fermentation lock, and put the bucket away. I expected the worst.