Yeast Collection

I have a wheat and a big heavy stout in secondary fermentation right now which both are to be bottled on Sunday while I am brewing another batch... the question I have is are there enough yeast in the bottom of the barrel to ferment a beer on Sunday? I was thinking of doing an amber ale.
Thanks
Luke

I have never used a yeast cake but from what I have read you will only need part of it. One in your case) Using the slurry tab, Mrmalty wants 90ml yeast for a 1.050 beer. I assume this is 90ml of slurry, but I am not sure about that.

I have used the yeast from a previous batch. I Usually bottle on the same day I brew so I just grab about 1- 2 cups of yeast cake, put it in a sanitized container, while I clean out the fermenter. Add the new brew, aerate well and pitch the slurry.

It's best to harvest from lower gravity beers because the yeast are in better shape. It will still work. You defiantly don't want to over pitch. A good growth phase will give you a more heathy culture.

I agree with Malti... don't over-pitch. If you do the yeast will not reproduce as much, so you will have lots of old yeast working on the beer and not too much new yeast. Also the reproduction phase develops a lot of the yeast flavors/characteristics.

For a cake/slurry, Mr. Malty can be confusing in trying to figure out the yeast content of the slurry. When re-using slurry, I generally use about a quarter of a cake for a subsequent batch. Makes it a lot simpler.

Do you pitch the slurry into the wort? Or do you add the slurry to the empty primary and add the cooled wort on top? I'm assuming the former but am a little nervous about it.

Pour it into the wort before or after aeration. I have to cool my wort in the fermenter in my fermantation fridge. You could pour wort on top of it. It dosen't matter.

Thanks, Maltilicious! That makes me feel a little better.