I've got a nice pipeline of sours aging now and I just brewed another Flemish Red with Wyeast Roeselare. One thing I've never done is resue a yeast cake, which I want to try when this Flemish red is done in the primary. I know with each reuse you get more sour and tart flavors so I really want to try this. Do I simply rack a new beer on top of the old yeast cake and pitch a regular saccharomyces yeast strain? Is there a time frame I should keep my Flemish red in the primary to be able to reuse the yeast cake with more success? It's in a plastic bucket right now so when active fermentation stops in the next few days I hope to rerack it into a glass carboy and put a fresh batch of beer on top of the yeast cake. Your advice is greatly appreciated!
Reuse Roeselare Yeast Cake
- Thread starter jrfehon
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jester5120
Well-Known Member
I had a lambic-esque beer that sat with a fresh pack of roeselare for about 7 months before racking to secondary. I Fermented an oud bruin with a neutral ale yeast and then racked it onto the roeselare cake for use as a secondary. I'm not sure those are best practices but that worked well for me. The oud bruin is about 10 months old now and really sour. I just racked a third beer onto that same yeast cake without washing or anything (the third beer was also fermented with a clean ale yeast before being racked onto the filthy sour bugs) it's rally pleasantly sour after only about a month.
not sure if that answers any of your questions but if you need more specifics i'll fill ya in
not sure if that answers any of your questions but if you need more specifics i'll fill ya in
this is true for old cakes, i.e. a cake that has beer aging on it for a year.
if your first beer is just finishing primary, the bugs haven't had time to multiply - they are much, much slower than sacch hence the need to wait months and months for their souring effect to take hold.
if you pitched the bugs just 2 or 3 weeks ago, they haven't had time to do much so you essentially have the same number of cells as when you first pitched them. splitting that number of cells between two batches isn't going to lead to more souring, you'll get less - at least in the short term. they'll both eventually sour but might take, say, 18 months instead of 12.
if you take the cake from that first batch in a year - that baby will sour quickly.
That makes sense. The problem then is I'm reracking in a few days into a glass carboy (it's in a plastic bucket now). I know some people don't secondary for Flemish reds but because it's in plastic I don't want the oxidization long term so I'm going to secondary in glass shortly. Should I just trash the cake from the primary and then reuse the secondary cake in a year or so?
there will be some bugs in the primary cake, just not many. so if you have something that you want to sour now, go ahead and rack on top of it - and be prepared to wait.
but if you don't have something right now, and you're just planning your sour pipeline - yeah, wait a year and re-use the secondary cake.
I used a Roeselare cake for 3 successive beers, over about 2 years. I think they all worked out perfectly. I understand that there are different creatures in there that will grow at different rates, but it turned out great. In fact, I'm drinking a 2-yr old Oud Bruin from one of those batches right now.
