Can I use krausen in instead of a starter or pack of yeast?

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Ticebain

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I made an ipa yesterday and need to make a hef on Wednesday. I have a nice big krausen on the ipa and I use the same type of yeast on both beers. (S-05). Can I skim off some of the krausen to start the hef? I want to save money and don't have any harvested yeast right now. If I can skim, how much for a OG 1051 beer?

Thanks
 
Usually you want to do that with top cropping strains, not sure S-05 qualifies. I'm pretty sure it should work anyway as long as you time it before the yeast starts to slow down. But that technique is much more usual with English and Belgian strains, so YMMV.
 
Gabe
Agreed but I like my wheats with a real clean yeast. I don't really care for heavy banana flavors. And I know the yeast is what makes it a hef. But for simplicity I still call it a hef :)

How much would I need to skim to have a good amount to use to ferment another 5 gals?
 
Yes, but you can't make hefeweizen with 05.

I was thinking the same thing. You could make a tasty wheat beer, but it won't have the right ester/phenol profile by any definition. I don't care what certain unnamed lackluster craft brewers call their lackluster wheat beers, they're not Hefeweizens.
 
How much would I need to skim to have a good amount to use to ferment another 5 gals?


I do 11.5 gallon batches and the APA I skimmed was at about FG so I skimmed all I could

which was not all about a quart measuring cup almost full but that was not settled, it was still fluffy

the porter took of in a couple of hours

S_M
 
I was thinking the same thing. You could make a tasty wheat beer, but it won't have the right ester/phenol profile by any definition. I don't care what certain unnamed lackluster craft brewers call their lackluster wheat beers, they're not Hefeweizens.

I agree. It has to have yeast with low floc and like 15 IBU's +/- a few. If it doesn't have both, I consider it American Wheat brewed out of style, which is fine.
 
I agree. It has to have yeast with low floc and like 15 IBU's +/- a few. If it doesn't have both, I consider it American Wheat brewed out of style, which is fine.

I don't care about the flocculation as much as the ester/phenol profile. IBUs matter, but again that's not mainly what I'm after.

My thing is the ester profile. If it doesn't have a noticeable banana and/or clove character (preferably both), it is NOT a Hefeweizen. American Wheats are usually much cleaner beers.
 

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