yeast from Stout to Mild

Well, like always i didnt plan ahead much. I have 10gallons of stout that i am about to keg. I would like to make a mild and i used English ale yeast for my stout which would be perfect for the mild, but, can i wash the yeast well enough to use it for the mild? Or will there be residule astringent flavors from the stout that will transfer to my mild?

I'd wager you can wash it and it'll be fine.

when you wash right, you really end up with just a yeast cake, which should solve any 'astringent' stout flavors in the leftover beer that didn't get racked.

From my perspective, it depends.

It depends on how much of what type slurry you're thinking of pitching. Are you going to stir up that last few millimeters of beer into the yeast cake to make the slurry? Are you going to cast onto the yeast cake? If so, you might note a bit of roasted-malt astringency.

If you're just going to stir up the yeast cake and last few mm of beer into a slurry and pitch a certain amount of that slurry into your fresh wort in a different fermenter, I wouldn't worry at all.

It also depends on how bright was your stout wort at cast/knockout. If there were lots of suspended solids in the wort - as though you made an extract beer with steeped specialty grains without a grain bag and a loose strainer, or had lots of hops particles in the wort - you'll no doubt have grain and/or hops particles in the yeast bed. Those particles might impact the Mild wort, depending on the how much are in there and how they're distributed in the slurry you intend to pitch to the Mild.

Really, though, I wouldn't worry all that much about flavor; I should think you'd note more of a color impact than anything, and that only if you intend to cast onto the cake. If you're pitching a slurry, I wouldn't worry much at all.

But that's just me! :fro:

Cheers,

Bob

Edit: I've never washed yeast in this procedure; I've just either pulled it from the bottom port of a unitank (at work) or stirred up the cake into a slurry (at home, rarely) and pitched the result. Malkore, would you kindly explain your washing procedure? I'm curious.

Rest assured that it will still be beer. One of my best is the MUTT. So named because I left a generous amount of a DARK beer in with the yeast and pitched a considerably lighter beer on it.

Im thinking about doing the same this weekend. Racking a brown off the yeast and putting a wheat in its place. I don't think I will use the entire yeast cake, instead just harvest some from it.

I would think that as long as you wash it well you should have no problem going from a stout to a mild. I rarely concern myself with the previous style when using washed yeast. It's obviously of more concern when repitching on an old yeast cake, but when you wash you should remove all the stout trub.