Gday! :) So i have just purchased the coopers real ale malt concentrate as well as a kilo of light malt. I started with 2 litre's of boiled water in my fermentor (after sanitising it with no rinse sanitiser) and added the coopers extract as well as the malt. gave a good stir. I then added filtered cold water to the 20 litre mark and then added boiled water and cold filtered water until i got to 23 litres and the desired temperature range of 28 degrees Celsius. I then added the brewing yeast at 28 degrees. My first question is. Was this too hot too add the yeast and have i shocked/killed it? secondly it only came with 7 grams of yeast, Is this enough for 23 litres of wort? The yeast seemed to disappear when i added it and a yeast'y smell was present. Another question i have is because the fermentor is in my garage, in a few hours it has dropped temperature slowly to around 24-26. So i now have put it in the kitchen hopefully keeping it at that temp. What temp will the yeast stop working? Also with the fermentor valve. I put just filtered water inside it. It wasn't sure if i used no rinse sanitised water or not. Thanks for the help!!!! :)
1 Answer
28°C is not too hot to add yeast; yeast is fine up to somewhere near 40°C. That being said, you do want to add the yeast as close to your fermentation temperature as possible.
7 grams of yeast is enough for 23L. In the future, however, consider rehydrating your yeast in warm (35°C) water for 15 minutes or so. That will let them come back to life in a simpler environment, so you'll have more healthy cells.
24-26 is actually a bit warmer than you'd like for most ales. Somewhere around 18-20 would be ideal. The yeast won't stop working until some very high temperature you will not reach, but a warmer ferment will cause them to produce flavor compounds that are not necessarily desirable. It won't produce undrinkable beer, but it won't be great, either.
Water in the airlock is perfectly fine. Some people use sanitizer, some people use vodka, some people don't use airlocks at all.
