Pitching onto yeast cake

I've got a new beer I'm planning to brew as well as one ready to be bottled. I'd like to just pitch onto the yeast cake of the previous. I assume autolysis occurs when the yeast have run out of stuff to ferment and start eating at the trub, and won't occur when there are fermentables. Is this true? Also, if there's residual hops and cold break in the fermenter, is this bad for pitching a new beer?

Autolysis is caused when some of yeast dies and puts out a toxin that kills off the remaining healthy yeast. It has nothing to do with trub. What is at the bottom of your primary when your beer is done is not dead yeast but sleeping yeast.

I pitch on the cake when the timing is right. It's fun having a violent fermentation and my beers have always turned out great.

Don't worry too much about cold break unless it's taking up more than, like, two inches on the bottom. Pitching onto a cake is really awesome, I've recently started doing it, and it seems to work just great.

Would pitching onto a yeast cake be better than pitching new yeast, since the old wort would have acted as a yeast starter, and there'd be much more yeast in the cake than what you would pitch from a new batch?

+1
if you've got the cake - pitch on it! You may get very active fermentation within an hour or two!

the yeast cake is an awesome starter. but i would be afraid of getting crap from the last brewing; dead/sick yeast, hops resin, fermentation byproducts. but that can be removed by cleaning the yeast. im sure there has to be a post or 20 on here about that.

it's not really necessary to clean the yeast, just don't reuse past 4 generations and keep fermentation temperatures steady

Would I need to add any other yeast? Or at least more of a stylized yeast, for example, I"m days away from bottling a wheat, and I have a pilsner and a williams brewing belgian quad on deck. Would either of these be suitable for pitching on a wheat cake, and if so, cake solely, or add the stylised yeast also?

sonetlumiere85 said:

it's not really necessary to clean the yeast, just don't reuse past 4 generations and keep fermentation temperatures steady

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Good point with fermentation temps, with a big yeast cake the temps in primary will get well above ambient temperature, you'll want to have some way to actively cool the fermenter.

I use a freezer with a temp controller on it that monitors the temp of the carboy and turns on accordingly. You don't need something that space consuming though, you can just put your carboy in any large tub you have and add a bottle or two of frozen water each day (trade out the bottles and refreeze) to keep the temperature where you want it.

Edit:

I don't think any of those brews can really share a yeast. You really want a belgian yeast for belgians, a wheat yeast for wheats and a mostly neutral yeast for a pils. I don't do belgians or wheats so... I don't stray far from nottingham, S-04 or S-05, so I'm able to reuse more.

You can always wash the yeast and store in your fridge to use for your next wheat.

well since the pils is kind of a "ah, f*** it, this could be my last hopped extract", would it be really really bad if I just threw the kit in there on top of the wheat cake? I'm not worried about it being stylistically correct, I'd rather just have a brew that doesn't taste like something you'd find in a puddle under an elephant. The Belgian Quad is getting no such treatment. Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

mikeysab said:

Would I need to add any other yeast? Or at least more of a stylized yeast, for example, I"m days away from bottling a wheat, and I have a pilsner and a williams brewing belgian quad on deck. Would either of these be suitable for pitching on a wheat cake, and if so, cake solely, or add the stylised yeast also?

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The general rule as I have always understood and practiced is to brew subsequent beers that become progressively darker, more bitter, and share yeast families. Ex. Pale Ale, ESB, IPA.

So, IMO, I would not pitch either of those new brews on that cake, although, repitching in general is one of the best methods to reach a "proper" pitching rate and save afew dollars while you're at it.

On second thought, the beligian would might be interesting if a stylized yeast were added. Almost a farmhouse quad...

mikeysab said:

Would I need to add any other yeast? Or at least more of a stylized yeast, for example, I"m days away from bottling a wheat, and I have a pilsner and a williams brewing belgian quad on deck. Would either of these be suitable for pitching on a wheat cake, and if so, cake solely, or add the stylised yeast also?

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A quad made with a wheat yeast might be really good actually. The only thing is making sure the cake is built up enough to handle that much alcohol. Also, the strain might not tolerate anything past 7% alcohol, which would basically ruin the point of a quad. Do you know what strain of wheat yeast you're using?

The strain of yeast in the cake is whatever comes with a coopers full wheat kit, and I didn't get the quad yet, so I'm not sure . I definitely don't want to mess the quad up, so maybe I'm better off just using whatever yeast the quad comes with. Or what if I use the cake, AND the yeast the kit comes with? Would that be over yeasting, or would I just need to add some extra sugar, like belgian candy?