Planning my next batch--reuse San Fran lager cake?

I've brewed two batches of beer so far. First batch was an IPA which is currently dry hopping in secondary, 2nd batch is an Anchor steam clone from AHS which is in primary (6.5g carboy) with San Francisco Lager yeast (WPL810) at about 58 F--this will have two weeks in primary next weekend and be ready to go into secondary.

I am trying to plan things for the next batch perhaps next weekend and I would love any comments/suggestions on my plan.


I have a kit for an Oktoberfest from homebrewery.com that my wife bought me for christmas and came with dry S-23 lager yeast. Since the WPL810 (as I understand it) still give clean beer at warmer temps (58-60F)--I was considering trying to reuse the yeast cake from the Anchor Steam primary and essentially add the cooled, aerated Oktoberfest wort on top of the trub/yeast in the carboy of the Anchor Steam. I guess the plan would be to rack the Anchor Steam to Secondary (I have another clean 5 g carboy ready for this) while the Oktoberfest wort is cooling. Then transfer the cooled (62-68 degrees range ok?) wort into the old Anchor Steam primary carboy.

Does this sound reasonable? Any reason Oktoberfest won't be good with WPL810 lager yeast? How careful do I need to not disturb the yeast/trub from the Anchor Steam (I was going to pour the wort into the carboy with a sanitized funnel as this is easier then racking)? Will this trub impart any "off flavors" into the oktoberfest (I did use hop bags while boiling the hops in the Anchor steam so these should not be in the trub)?


Thanks,

The other alternative is wash the yeast and make a starter with the washed yeast midweek and brew the oktoberfest the following weekend. The upside of this is that i'll have some extra jars of washed yeast to use in future brews. The downside of the washing plan is having to clean out the carboy use extra sanitizer and wait an extra week to brew.....