Pitching a Brown on an IPA cake?

I'm planning on brewing a strong american brown ale this upcoming weekend, and I was planning on using Nottingham yeast. I got to thinking last night... I have an IPA that I was going to rack to secondary to dry hop tonight that used Nottingham as well. If I held off and racked that this weekend, just before brewing the brown, could I simply pitch the brown on top of the cake/trub from the IPA?

I know its theoretically possible, and I know its reccomended to go from a lighter beer to a heavier one. That is what I would be doing, from an IPA at about 50 IBU and an OG of 1.055 to a brown with an expected final IBU of about 45 and an expected OG of nearly 1.08. I figured the extra yeast in the cake couldnt hurt with such a high gravity beer as well, so hopefully overpitching wouldnt be an issue.

However... I've never pitched on a cake before, and have a bit of trepidation. The brown is due to be my thanksgiving beer, big and slightly sweet to pair with turkyday fixings, and will be served to a bunch of my family members, so its a fairly important batch.

Is it worth it to try this new (for me) technique? What problems might result?


Thanks for your thoughts!

Notty is so cheap. Just wondering why you'd want to re-use a cake.

Pitching a brown.. such a strong euphemism..

Personally, I'd just pitch another fresh packet if the batch was critical for success. Less chance of anything going goofy.

petep1980 said:

Notty is so cheap. Just wondering why you'd want to re-use a cake.

Click to expand...

Because at this stage it's going to take off like a rocket, and make for awesome attenuation. And plenty of people, including one of the mods have been known to harvest and reuse dry (but now liquid) yeasts.

Me, I think pitching a brown (yeah chumprock I get it, LOL) on top on top of an IPA would be an excellent idea.

In fact I would do something like Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale or HeBrew's Messiah Bold Brown Ale. (if you haven't tried either of them check em out, and google them for info.)

A Hoppy and assertive brown, rather than a balanced one.




I wouldn't even wash the yeastcake, just pitch right on top of the yeast, and hops and all.

I think it would be ok. I would probably not want to do this for more than 1 generation of yeast. Yes, the IPA might have less total viable and healthy yeast than, say a 1.040 batch, but the very large mass would more than make up for it.

Plus, I doubt you'd get enough left-over hops matter to impact the flavor of a brown too much.

Although, for the small amount of extra effort, I'd seriously consider washing the yeast once to separate as much trub from the yeast as I could.

Revvy said:

Because at this stage it's going to take off like a rocket, and make for awesome attenuation. And plenty of people, including one of the mods have been known to harvest and reuse dry (but now liquid) yeasts.

Me, I think pitching a brown (yeah chumprock I get it, LOL) on top on top of an IPA would be an excellent idea.

In fact I would do something like Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale or HeBrew's Messiah Bold Brown Ale. (if you haven't tried either of them check em out, and google them for info.)

A Hoppy and assertive brown, rather than a balanced one.

I wouldn't even wash the yeastcake, just pitch right on top of the yeast, and hops and all.

Click to expand...

Heh, actually the DFH Indian Brown is very much in the vein of what I'm trying to produce. I love that beer.

I wasn't really worried about the cost, I was thinking that pitching on the previous cake might produce a better beer than pitching a fresh packet, since the cell count would be higher. I know the cake is healthy because the IPA fermented very well, at the right temperature, etc.

I've only very briefly read about yeast washing. How would I go about quickly washing the cake to remove the unwanted trub? Just put some boiled water in the fermenter and swirl? How would you seperate the good from the bad at that point? This is probably a seperate issue I should go research. heh. *runs off to search yeast washing*

I don't see any problem and for a 1.080 beer, pitching on a cake is the way to go. You could just run the trub through a fine strainer if you were worried about left-overs from the IPA, but since this is a holiday ale I doubt much of the residual hop aroma will still be there.

Simple yeast washing I boil a bit of water and sanitize a large container, like a large jar. Mix boiled water into fermenter and slosh around to loosen the trub. Pour into jar and let sit for a bit. Heavy stuff sinks quickly. Pour the rest off.

Then you can put the rest in the fridge to separate the water from the yeast. But if you didn't use much water, you might not worry about it and just pitch on top of that slurry.

What problems might result?

Click to expand...

The most common problem is an explosive ferment. I always set the fermenter in a sink and cool the wort to the low end of the yeast's temperature range.

mindcrime said:

Is it worth it to try this new (for me) technique? What problems might result?

Click to expand...

Everything in brewing is worth trying. Though, others are right that notty is cheap.

Jamil Zainasheff swears that his beers taste better when he repitches his yeast, as opposed to new yeast. I think he claims the 3rd or 4th batch is best. If true, that only is the reason to do it -> better beer.

The biggest problem is that it could taste wierd. So I agree with Revvy, make a brown that's hoppy like you say you're doing anyway. That should be no problem.

I wouldn't, personally, do this for a Malty English Brown. Same as I wouldn't pitch a Dopplebock cake onto a Munich Helles. That is silly, in my opinion.

I pitched a DFH 90 onto a Notty cake that was from an APA. I learned from messes made by everyone else and used a blowoff tube, and man that was a SMART IDEA. I didn't have krausen in the tube, but it was venting enough to make a BLORP sound every two seconds. It also brought me down to 1.018 instead of the projected 1.025 or so. Not bad, considering I ended up mashing a bit higher than I originally wanted.

In this case, given what you want, you're good to go. Otherwise, as Noeldundas is saying, you're primarily going to want to go from light/plain to dark/strong/flavorful. I didn't pitch onto or wash the DFH90 cake.

Update:

Bottling this weekend. Pitching on the old cake worked great, and the beer tastes incredible after a long secondary to bulk age. Its good now, and by thanksgiving, this is going to be steller. Definately reserving a few bottles for competition from this one.

yeah i reuse cakes all the time becase i do 10 gal batches and yeast is not that cheap.

i find that most of the people that issue warning about pitching on a cake, have never done it, and as for over pitching i think that its just total crap. commercial brewery pitch rates are 4 to 8 times higher than most home brew rates

some say that pitching to a cake or over pitching will forgo the aerobic phase and the flavors it makes , but i call bs on this too you can oxygenate the cake and the wort just the same, i offton rack a gallon on to the cake and stop and then give it a reall good shake and the just rack the rest with no further airation, and it goes off like a rocket
i dont know how many air locks i blew off , putting a blast mark on the celling before i got a blow off tube and stopper.
good thing i have a brew cave

Clayton said:

yeah i reuse cakes all the time becase i do 10 gal batches and yeast is not that cheap.

i find that most of the people that issue warning about pitching on a cake, have never done it,

Click to expand...

Yup.

I did a Belgain Wit pitched on top of my saison cake....and it was one of the best beers I have ever made.

Over pitching is not crap. I've done it a few times and got the dreaded yeast bite. It may not be an issue with all beers but I believe all beers are better when pitched with the correct amount of yeast. It's one a of the few controls we have over them. In fact a porter that I repitched a calculated amount of Nottingham just won a blue ribbon (and I also got another couple of ribbons for repitched US-05.) If you just want your yeast to run wild overpitch away, but if you want them to produce better beer try pitching the proper amount. If you pitch less yeast you will end up with a stronger, younger population doing the work and less dead yeast coming out the airlock.