racking onto a yeast cake

I will be racking and bottling my irish red today and racking a new beer right on top of the yeast cake.

This is my first time doing this.

The irish red has been in the fermentor for 2.5 weeks; should I worry that the yeast will do its job on the new beer???


Also, there is some krausen residue near the top of the fermentor, should I juat let that be and then when I aerate my new beer get it mixed up in the mix???


Thanks to anyone with advice.

leave it be, it'll work fine. i've done it a few times. be ready with a blow-off tube...there are a LOT of yeast in there and you'll get a crazy fermentation.

Yeah, you actually have more yeast in there than you need. You could pull out a cup of yeast cake/slurry, then pour the new wort in.

you'll get explosive fermentation within hours. a blow off hose will be necessary.

and make 100% sure your wort is at uniform pitching temperature so you don't stress (or cook) the yeast.

Those little guys are going to beat the $hit out of your poor wort!

Pitching onto a yeast cake is the way to go.

Only thing I would worry is if the previous batch of beer is different from your new batch of beer. But if you doing the exact same recipe, then it should be fine.

be ready with a blow-off tube

Click to expand...

+1 Also, based on my recent experience, be prepared to lose a fair amount of wort -- as in the photos below.




Rick

when i pitch on a yeast cake i split my wort between 2 - 5 gallon fermenters to have lots of head space.
i hate losing beer to blow offs!

Woohoo, I get to self-promote again! +1 on the blow-off dude!

[youtube]EEvM0yAJg7o[/youtube]

Unless properly planned you're going to overpitch... I'm still working out the proportions but I think tripling the original gravity of the last batch is a good place to start. Don't worry regardless, it will still be great beer!

thanks for all the replies and advice!!

I brewed an arrogant bastard clone, bottled my hopped up amber ale, and racked the new beer onto the yeast cake today!!


I split the 5 gallons between two carboys because of the advice you guys gave,(explosive ferementation= a mess in a 6 gallon carboy)

I was thinking that I would let the main crazy fermentation take place over the next 2-3 days and then rack 2.5 gallons from one carboy to the other and let the 5 gallons be together for 1.5 weeks before going to a secondary.

Does this sound like an OK plan???

Thanks

I would wait a week, and then transfer both to a secondary. Every time you rack beer you lose a little, so I would just move it once.

I do not have a third carboy for fermenting/clearing beer.

I have 2.5 gallons of fermenting muddy looking Arrogant bastard ale in one carboy and 2.5 gallons in the other.

I really want to combine the two into one carboy.

Will the oxygen that is introduced during the transfer mess with the beer??

Should I siphon, or can I pour trough a sanitized funnel??


At the moment the beer is feremtning and looking pretty muddy and brown and there is still a decent amount of krausen on the beer. Shouls I wait till it gets more clear???

I know I should RDWHAHB but I just dont want to mess up 5 gallons of Arrogant Bastardness

After fermentation is going, you don't want to introduce oxygen, so you must rack if you want to move it. I don't understand what you are asking, though. Why do you want to combine them into one carboy now? I'd let them ferment out completely and then either bottle or rack into a clearing vessel. Like in maybe two weeks or so.

I am probably just looking to do something but I only have two carboys and my 5 gallon batch is split between them because I was told that racking onto a yeast cake would create an explosive fermentation and I would probably loose beer in the blow-off

so i wanted to have all the beer in the same carboy, once the feremntation died down.

should I not even bother; wait 2 weeks and bottle???

No, just wait until you would normally go to secondary, and combine them then. You don't want to remove the beer from the yeast bed while it is still fermenting.

I would wait until the beer is done fermenting, then rack one carboy into the other. Clean/Santize first carboy and rack into that for clearing. After it has cleared (week or so), then bottle it.

Rick_R said:

+1 Also, based on my recent experience, be prepared to lose a fair amount of wort -- as in the photos below.

Rick

Click to expand...

I just pitched onto a koelsch yeast cake Sunday. I used some Ferment-S drops to keep the krausen down and make sure I didn't lose too much brew. Seems to have worked pretty well. Had a little bit of blow-off and you can see tons of bubbles in the carboy. Fermentation seems to be going well!

Good Luck!

-Ron

great advice. Thanks