Yeast cake pitching? IPA on top of a Wheat?

Brewed up 10 gallons of an american wheat. Friday i'll be ready to rack them into kegs but also want to brew something that day as well.

Used SF-05 in each carboy.. As usual the second one got the bulk of the sludge at the bottom of the kettle.

Running low on the old IPA standby, would adding the IPA wort to the least "trubby" carboy be a bad thing? even though there is wheat in there I'm not sure if it will mess up the IPA too much. ?

It should be OK. I would recommend going to Mr Malty and checking out the pitching from slurry functionality. That should help you figure out how much you'll need for proper pitching rates.

IMO, the 2 things to worry about with pitching on yeast cakes are these:

1) Pitching rates can be tricky. Too much yeast initially can affect the flavor profile, as esters are created during the yeast's reproductive phase. If there is too much yeast, they won't need to reproduce and they won't create these esters.

2) Depending on what your first beer was, some of the characteristics (hop profile, color, etc.) can and will be inherited by the second beer. Conventional wisdom suggests to move from a lighter to a darker beer. So, pitch a brown ale or a porter on the yeast cake of a pale ale, or something similar.

Both of these issues can be relieved by washing your yeast. It's fairly easy, and you can reuse the yeast on almost any future beer. Up to 3-4 generations, your yeast should be fairly mutation-free.

The wheat might affect the IPA, but I would do it, if it were me. Again, check out that pitching rate calculator to see if you need to reach in there with a sanitized ladle and pull out some of the yeast.

Awesome info, thanks!! I need to start washing and reusing my yeast anyways. At the rate i've been brewing I could save a pretty substantial amount by reusing the yeast.

For a lot of beers like an american IPA, esters from the yeast aren't that important so overpitching probably won't be too much of an issue, right?

Its so much easier to just rack your IPA onto your existing yeast cake that it seems to be the best thing to do if you can do it (I'm lazy).