fermenting question

Hello. I brewed a dunkelweizen about a week ago,and in a few more days plan on racking to a secondary fermenter. I have read something about saving some of the yeast from one batch to use in another.My question is,can I just pour the next batch into my primary with the existing yeast cake/trub,and if so will it affect the flavor of my next brew? Thanks.

If you are brewing the same day, you can pour your wort directly on the yeast cake...however the yeast cake will retain the flavors from the prior batch. Most people wash there yeast, which eliminates off flavors/wild yeast that could be transferred to the next beer.

This might sound stupid,but how do you wash the yeast? I mean,I would probably wash the yeast away. haha

Very little of the flavor gets carried over to the next brew. Lets say you have a pint of liquid left. When diluted in 40 pints, it is about 2.5%. I wouldn't worry about that.

Now if you added spices, they may still be there in the trub.

You can pitch directly on the cake. There is no need to wash.

I would recommend only using about a quarter of the cake. If you use the whole cake, it will not need to go through a reproduction stage, and the yeast working on the new beer will be old and stressed. Also, the reproduction phase creates some of the esters in the beer, which you will miss.

Basically, pour the cake into sanitized containers, and then just straight pitch (no starter) about a third to a quarter of the cake. If you don't want to brew immediately, it will keep in the fridge for a month.

Taterbug said:

This might sound stupid,but how do you wash the yeast? I mean,I would probably wash the yeast away. haha

Click to expand...

This video explains it pretty good.

Great video on yeast washing...here is a forum post on reusing yeast cake, it may help you as well: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=7652

Calder said:

I would recommend only using about a quarter of the cake. If you use the whole cake, it will not need to go through a reproduction stage, and the yeast working on the new beer will be old and stressed. Also, the reproduction phase creates some of the esters in the beer, which you will miss.

Click to expand...

Unless you're making a barley wine or something big like that

Taterbug said:

This might sound stupid,but how do you wash the yeast? I mean,I would probably wash the yeast away. haha

Click to expand...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/