Yeast cakes rule!

First time racking onto a yeast cake. Transferred my 1.043 Cream Ale to secondary and used the cake to ferment my 1.063 NB Dead Ringer. I have blowoff activity in under two hours! Anyway, I thought it was cool.

BEER SCIENCE! It's a beaut.

Watch your temps! I've never had a lot of luck racking onto a yeast cake. Of course i was attempting a 12% Belgian Dark Strong.

If you are doing starters, you can also do a 2 step starter, harvesting a sample for future starters after the first step. This process has the advantage of eliminating the first batch flavors from the second batch.

its my favorite cake. Don't say that on dating website questionaires though, you might get banned

william_shakes_beer said:

If you are doing starters, you can also do a 2 step starter, harvesting a sample for future starters after the first step. This process has the advantage of eliminating the first batch flavors from the second batch.

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I figured a more generic flavor brew like a cream ale would be a good cake to try this on. I like my IPA with a little sweetness so I would mind if some of the honey malt comes through. I'm not a fan of starters. Maybe it's because I don't gave a bung/airlock for my flask but I never know if anything is happening. Stepping up two, three times? Seems like a weeks worth of attention, I've gone to dry yeast, my understanding is that there's actually more yeast than liquid?

Maybe it's because I don't gave a bung/airlock for my flask but I never know if anything is happening.

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It is better to just use some aluminum foil over the top of the flask. You will notice the starter change color as the yeast multiplies.