Yeast Cake Pitch

I am 2 weeks into a Ordinary Bitters and am going to brew an oatmeal stout. I am planning on pitching the stout directly onto the bitters yeast cake (nottingham).

Should I just aerate and cool and put the stout wort directly onto the 'old' yeast, or is a wash recommended?

tia

I was also wondering if you guys think that I should use a blowoff tube here instead of just an airlock. This is my first brew greater than 1.060

Alot of people will tell you to wash the yeast and a similar amount will tell you just to dump it. My rule of thumb is, if your going darker/more bitter, just dump it on top of the old yeast cake. As far as the blow-off.... I always put one on my primaries for at least the first week, regardless of the OG. Just a practice I picked up from day one that has probably saved me alot of headaches. Not every brew needs one...but for the peice of mind it's a small trivial step. I ferment in carboys and 4 feet of 1 1/4" ID tubing from HD was under 10 bucks. The other end I put in a small bucket (LME from Austin Homebrew) with the Starsan I used to sanitize all my brewing tools for that day....

I plan on doing this a couple weeks from now and the reading I've done has been mixed as Hammy71 says. But almost everyone agrees that using the entire yeast cake is too much. It would be better if you gathered the correct amount according to Mr Malty's calculator in a sanitized jar/cup and dumped the rest. Then clean your fermenter and proceed as normal, pitching the yeast that you gathered.

mrgstiffler said:

I plan on doing this a couple weeks from now and the reading I've done has been mixed as Hammy71 says. But almost everyone agrees that using the entire yeast cake is too much. It would be better if you gathered the correct amount according to Mr Malty's calculator in a sanitized jar/cup and dumped the rest. Then clean your fermenter and proceed as normal, pitching the yeast that you gathered.

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And then again there is another group of people who say that there is no such thing as too much yeast. I just pitched an IPA on top of a altbier yeast cake (safale 05) and the IPA tasted great when I just racked to the clearing vessel. I have never had any problems with pitching onto the whole yeast cake and washing yeast sounds like a PITA when you can just dump your beer on top of the cake.

Well....there is a thing as pitching to much yeast. The yeast need to have their 'multiplication' period to ferment correctly (that's the easy explanation..). But I'm not sure that a yeast cake is way to much. Especially with a 1.060+ beer.

I have been wondering this too. I have a 1.084 beer going and want to use the yeast on a 1.112 beer. I am wondering how much I will need. Mr Malty says I should have 429 billion yeast cells, I guess that is just 4-5 times the amount that is in 1 vial.

humann_brewing said:

I have been wondering this too. I have a 1.084 beer going and want to use the yeast on a 1.112 beer. I am wondering how much I will need. Mr Malty says I should have 429 billion yeast cells, I guess that is just 4-5 times the amount that is in 1 vial.

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Mr Malty should also show an amount in ml. That can be used to easily figure out how much you would need.

mrgstiffler said:

Mr Malty should also show an amount in ml. That can be used to easily figure out how much you would need.

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It does..... Under "repitching from starter"....