Did I kill (or wound) my yeast?

[Dry County Paul]

I'm making my first batch, from a Coopers IPA kit. I'm basically following the directions, though taking Papazian's advice, I boil 2 gallons of the wort for 45 minutes. (I'm going by the very basic instructions in the beginning section of the book.) What this means is that I've boiled 2 gallons of wort, and added to 4 gallons (it's a 6 gallon kit) of cool (probably 60 degrees F or so) water. And I wait for the wort to cool a bit knowing that adding yeast to hot water is bad. But I get nervous. I'm taking the wort temperature with a sterilized candy thermometer, and when it gets to 90/95 I figure that I'd better add the yeast before something happens. I do so, put the lid on the fermenter, and put it in my closet. I did at first forget to put water in the fermentation lock, but I remembered to do so about 12 hours after all this--there was a beery smell. But no activity. Finally, after about 48 hours in the fermenter, I'm getting bubbles, nothing vigorous, just a few every couple of seconds or so. Since the batch is in one of those plastic buckets, I can't see the krausen. The air temp is probably running between 60-70 in the house.

The instructions the supplier gave me said to wait 10 days for fermentation to complete.

[corkybstewart]

Welcome to the site and the obsession.
Calm down and relax. The hardest part of brewing is waiting. If your airlock is bubbling, however slowly, you're brewing beer. Your house temp is very good for brewing so that's not a problem. You did pitch yeast a little too hot but I've pitched yeast at 100F and they survived. This beer kit is not a very "big" beer in terms of original gravity so fermentation isn't going to be too wild.
Do you have a hydrometer, and do you know how to use it? Leave your beer alone until a couple of days after it quits bubbling and then take a hydrometer reading. I'm guessing it should be around 1.012 when your beer is finished. Transfer to a bottling bucket, add priming sugar, and bottle it. Then wait 2 weeks and start enjoying. By now you should have your next kit ready to brew so you don't waste time between batches.

[Dry County Paul]

I do have a hydrometer, and I did take a reading before pitching my yeast. Is it ok to put the sterilized hydromter directly in the bucket? That seems easier than putting the liquid in a separate container.

I do have a second, more elaborate kit already to go. It's a stout.

[corkybstewart]

It's going to be very hard to see the hydrometer in the bucket. Sterilize a turkey baster and fill the plastic sleeve the hydrometer came in. But I'd wait until all airlock activity is finished, you don't want to be taking too many samples. And of course you know to drink the sample. It'll give you an idea of what very green beer tastes like. Don't panic if it doesn't taste good, it usually doesn't.

[Dry County Paul]

Green beer (at least mine) tastes like flat Michelob with floaty yeasty things.

[Otis_The_Drunk]

Originally posted by Dry County Paul
Green beer (at least mine) tastes like flat Michelob with floaty yeasty things.

Didn't you put any hops in it? Or did you just wave the bag of hops over the wort?

Just kidding, your doing fine.

[Dry County Paul]

Originally posted by Otis_The_Drunk
Didn't you put any hops in it? Or did you just wave the bag of hops over the wort?

Just kidding, your doing fine.

It was one of those pre-hopped kits, and the guy at the brew supply store said it wasn't very hoppy. This was really more of a trial run than anything else.

[Otis_The_Drunk]

Where abouts in Arjansas are you at? I used to drive truck out of Dardanelle.

[fatboy570]

Looks like Paul's panicking a bit. As corky said, relax. I usually wait till airlock activity has ceased, then take a hydrometer reading for 3 days in a row. If theres no change, I rack to secondary for a few days to help clear the beer, then bottle. Hardest part is waiting for the beer to condition. Others may do different, but this has worked well for me. Hey Otis, did you ever make it up to Clinton for the chuckwagon races?

[Dry County Paul]

I'm in Magnolia. No, I'm not panicking--assuming the beer improves at least a little from what I tasted yesterday, it will be drinkable.

I'll take another reading today, yesterday, it was 1.019. It seems like there very little activity left, though.