My question is about pulling yeast out of cold storage before pitching. Should we be pulling our yeast brink out to warm up to near fermentation temperatures before pitching? Or, is it alright to pitch directly after pulling the brink out of the walk-in? What are the stressors/ effects on the yeast/ fermentation if we're not letting the yeast warm up?
Great questions! It's actually better to pitch the yeast cold, rather than let it warm up first. As yeast warms up, they become active. This should happen in an environment where there’s plenty of oxygen, nutrients and sources of energy available. If they become active in the yeast brink without these resources available, they’ll begin depleting their own stores of glycogen. This and the build of CO2, can be extremely harmful to yeast and has the potential to decrease the viability. The effect here would be slow or stalled fermentations, longer VDK reduction times, and/or issues with flavor and aroma.
We thought the temperature swing would be a stressor, but this makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your help!