Yeast reuse questions.

I've got a Tripel in the primary now that I'll move that to a secondary in a couple weeks. I was looking at another recipe that uses the same yeast. NB Patersbier. Trappist High Gravity Wyeast.

I've seen suggestions about not washing or reusing yeast from high gravity batches. Should I not pitch the Patersbier on the Tripel cake? If I do it should I not wash the yeast from the double batch cake to be reused down the road. Future uses would be other tripel batches and patersbier if I like that one.

Thanks for any advice.

The conventional wisdom is that it's better to go up in gravity when re-using yeast because alcohol stresses yeast. I would personally say go for it because experimentation is part of the fun. The worst thing that could happen is you'll get a stuck fermentation and have to re-pitch some fresh yeast.

I would, however, recommend that you only use a portion of the yeast for your Patersbier. To use the whole thing would be way overpitching, and your beer might come out kind of lifeless. Use the calculator over at mrmalty.com to estimate how much slurry you need to use, and then you could wash the rest and save it for something in the future.

So, I would say give it a go but don't pitch all of it.

I think I would agree, from what I've read, pitching onto the whole cake might make things weird. But re-using some of the yeast sounds like a cool idea.

As a follow up, I'm planning to do something similar this weekend. I have a Chinook IPA (OG 1.050) that will be 2 weeks old and should be done fermenting. I'd like to make a Double IPA and pitch right onto the Chinook yeast. What is anyone's opinion of that? I also like the last post's comment who says experimenting is part of the fun!

Hrm...I'm thinking I'll play it safe and buy a fresh pack of yeast for the Patersbier and wash that for future use. I don't want to experiment with a recipe the first time I make it.

I suppose I'll wash the tripel yeast and keep it a while, maybe use it in the future if I do the tripel or patersbier again in the near future.