racking onto a yeast cake...

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
bjzelectric

bjzelectric

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
215
Reaction score
3
Location
Hillsborough
I plan on brewing another big beer today. I have a Belgian pale from a partigyle I did a few weeks ago(1.034) and I'm gonna just rack this to secondary and rack today's brew onto the yeast cake. Good idea right? I think so. I'd like advice from anyone whose done this before. I use glass carboys to ferment in and I'm wondering if there is someway to sanitize the one with the cake in it. Think its probably OK just wanna see if anyone had a technique for doing so. Thx all
 
Just be ready for a potentially huge fermentation. Pitching onto a yeast cake, while awesome, can get messy if you're not prepared for it. Blow off, blow off, blow off!

It'll be fine though. I do it lots. :mug:
 
I just dumped a fresh batch onto a nottingham cake this weekend. It was bubbling like crazy in only 6 hours. Actually, I scooped out the yeast into a sanitized jar, cleaned the bucket and mixed it all back together.
 
While preparing for a huge fermentation by using a blow off is always a good idea, I have yet to need one from pitching on a cake or using a starter. Rehydrated yeast or a Smack Pack? Yes.

I have had good luck with the two or three times I have pitched on a used cake. I try and have bottling and brewing days coincide so I can bottle the ready batch during the boil, put some foil over the carboy, and pitch within about an hour of racking off.
 
cappy said:
I just dumped a fresh batch onto a nottingham cake this weekend. It was bubbling like crazy in only 6 hours. Actually, I scooped out the yeast into a sanitized jar, cleaned the bucket and mixed it all back together.
Click to expand...

I would go this route. Its surprisingly easy to separate the good yeast from the trub and get it out of there. I throw in some boiled/cooled water, give it a good swirl, let it the trub settle for 5-10 minutes then decant off the yeast in solution. For a bucket, I do the same thing but use a turkey baster to collect the yeast. You can get really accurate and sanitary this way, so you won't have to get all paranoid about overpitching, blowoff, off-flavors or infection.
 
Although pitching onto an entire yeast cake provides a quick & exciting fermentation, it isn't the best for the flavor of your beer. A lot of flavor components are generated through the multiplication of yeast, and when you pitch that much yeast they don't have to multiply nearly as much before fermentation is complete. My experience has been that the resulting beers turn out more bland and ordinary than usual, so I don't do it anymore and just use standard pitching rates or maybe a little more.

This will help:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
 
I was going to suggest pouring off 1/2 of the yeast cake, which is what I always do, but since it was to be a "big" beer, I second guessed that.
 
Yea I found it under the recipes section. Its under the "Belgian strong ales" sub catergory. I've never had the real thing but the Guy who posted it says its pretty damn close. You could probably just do a search for the recipe too.
 
I've racked directly on a cake a couple times with good results. just this weekend I racked a big doppelbock (1.092) onto a cake of white labs bock yeast from a schwarzbier. had krausen in less than 2 hours and is still going strong 3 days later.
 
I just finished "Brew Like a Monk" and going by the schedules he gives, they must be pitching MASSIVE amounts of yeast for such big beers to be done so quick.
 
I agree. Judging by how fast mine took off and the fact that krausen has been spewing out constantly for 24 hours now, I figure they probably do.
 
MNDan said:
Although pitching onto an entire yeast cake provides a quick & exciting fermentation, it isn't the best for the flavor of your beer. A lot of flavor components are generated through the multiplication of yeast, and when you pitch that much yeast they don't have to multiply nearly as much before fermentation is complete. My experience has been that the resulting beers turn out more bland and ordinary than usual, so I don't do it anymore and just use standard pitching rates or maybe a little more.

This will help:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more with this post. Just think of how much crap is in that cake your pitching onto, tons of trub, dead yeast, etc. I didn't realize how much I was overpitching until I used Mr.Malty. You really don't need as much yeast as you think, even for the big beers. A little lag time is a good thing, you want that yeast to reproduce and be nice and healthy for your fermentation. Not to mention taking the time to clean & Sanitize your primary.
 

Similar threads

Hoochin'Fool
yeast cake question
Replies
2
Views
231
hottpeper13
H
S
Question about racking onto a previous beer’s yeast cake
Replies
5
Views
917
hiphoppotamuss
hiphoppotamuss
Tony B
Too much yeast?
Replies
1
Views
276
Tony B
Tony B
S
Apples in seconday, massive sediment overnight.....
Replies
0
Views
181
shanes66charger
S
N
Yeast Cake Size
2
Replies
46
Views
2K
ninkwood
N

Latest posts

Back
Top