Yeasties too stressed to wash?

I brewed a 1.040 Belgian Pale Ale so that I could use the yeast cake for a 8% Belgian Dubbel. I want to wash the yeast after the Belgian Dubbel, but I am concerned about the yeast not being viable for a washing after a higher gravity beer. Am I off base?

Thanks

I dont see how a low gravity beer would overstress the yeasties. I've made beers from washed yeast that was 6 months old.

I agree with Piv.

I think you are good to go. If that is the first batch for that yeast, you probably don't even need to wash it. Go ahead and pitch the bigger brew on either the primary or secondary yeast. Arguments debate upon which yeast is better to use. I'll let you decide that.....

brew hoperator said:

8% Belgian Dubbel. I want to wash the yeast after the Belgian Dubbel, but I am concerned about the yeast not being viable for a washing after a higher gravity beer.

Click to expand...

You guys missed the question. He wants to save the yeast after fermenting the 8% Belgian Dubbel.

My recommendation would be to save half of the yeast cake from the Belgian Pale and store it in two or three mason jars in the fridge. Use the other half to ferment you Belgian Dubbel, half of the yeast cake is more than enough yeast to properly ferment that beer.

Good Luck to you and your newly founded yeast bank.

Sorry I misread it and Greg is right.

What I would do is wash the original yeast and use Mr Malty calculator to figure out how much you would need to start the Dubbel. I know it will be a lot less than 1/2 of what you collect, especially if you have a stir plate.

You can still save it after doing the Dubbel, it will be 3rd generation yeast and I dont think 8% is anything crazy. People say that they do upto 10 generations and I think if you keep it within 5 generations you should be able to do it without any issues.

WY Trappist High Gravity can do upto 12%. I dont know what strain you are using but I think all should be able to tolerate more than 8%. I am not sure what kind of stress you put on the yeasties when you use them near max but I would think that they are able to eat thru all the sugars without any problems.

Stressed? Probably not enough to worry about. Embarrassed from being called "yeasties"? Definately!