Mild Mannered Ale - help with yeast cake

I am brewing Orfy's Mild Mannered Ale

I am going to pitch it on a yeast cake of Nottingham in a Pale that I am bottling the same day. This is the first time I pitched over a yeast cake and I have read some conflicting opinions (big surprise ) My confusion is that I have read if you pitch it over the whole cake...it is too much yeast - finishes too fast and rigorous.

So people recommend using only a portion of the yeast. I however brew in a glass carboy. So should I just say screw it and rack over the whole thing or you give me some method that gives a) how to get it out, and b) how much of the yeast cake to use.

Your vote/feedback is appreciated:

1) Just rack over the whole cake!
2) Rack over partial cake (and your method when using glass carboy)

Thanks,

Craig
Flagstaff, AZ

I wouldn't pitch on to the whole cake. I think your best bet is to try and get the cake mixed up real good and then pour what you want to keep in a Mason Jar or pitcher. Then give your primary a good cleaning & sanitizing. I personally think it's bad practice to have your new batch of wort sitting on all that trub and junk from a previous beer.

Use Mr.Malty and you will be surprised and how little of the cake you really need, especially for a beer like a mild.

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

I've pitched onto yeast cake many times with excellent results. As a matter of fact, I did it when I made my batch of Mild Mannered ale. Have a blow off tube ready because it does create a great fermentation.

Yankee - do you think the default settings on Mr. Malty are ok? I am coming out with 71 ml or about 5 tbsp. Just not sure if what I have after siphoning off the Pale - Thin Slurry or Thick Yeast. By sliding it, it goes from 179 to 36.

Half way would be 107 ml or 7 tbsp - maybe I will go there to be safe.

The non-yeast % slider doesn't effect much.

Or should I throw it in and get out of the way?

cbird01 said:

Yankee - do you think the default settings on Mr. Malty are ok? I am coming out with 71 ml or about 5 tbsp. Just not sure if what I have after siphoning off the Pale - Thin Slurry or Thick Yeast. By sliding it, it goes from 179 to 36.

Half way would be 107 ml or 7 tbsp - maybe I will go there to be safe.

The non-yeast % slider doesn't effect much.

Or should I throw it in and get out of the way?

Click to expand...

I'd err a little on the high side

EDIT: I think the most important part here is taking the time to get your Primary cleaned & Sanitized.

Racking a mild onto a cake from another beer of the same volume would be overpitching a lot. With English beers taking so much flavor from the yeast, this would be a big mistake IMO.

Here is a really good guide (with pictures) on how to wash and reuse yeast. He is very through with the wash, you could probably be less since you are immediately re-pitching.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/

+1,963 to NOT pitching onto a yeast cake. It is always overpitching, even with big lager beers. In a Mild, it's suicide.

You can still harvest yeast from your carboy. YankeeHillBrewer's technique is as good as any. When you rack, leave a small amount of beer behind. Swirl the glop really thoroughly by swirling the carboy (carefully; glass carboys are really dangerous glass grenades when mishandled). Sanitize a glass pitcher and a few pint-size Mason jars. Decant the slurry into the pitcher and pour from the pitcher into the jars. Cover with sanitized lids and refrigerate until your Mild wort is ready for pitching. You can adjust the Mr Malty calculator for time stored.

Most every ale requires a certain amount of ester production - having esters is part of what defines it as "ale". Overpitching suppresses ester production, which process I'll explain if you really want to know. That makes mediocre (at best) ale.

You wouldn't just toss an undetermined amount of hops into your kettle, would you? Or an undefined amount of grain/extract? So why do that with yeast? Pitch a known quantity, the correct quantity as well as you can determine, and the people who drink your beer will thank you.

Good luck!

Bob

When you rack, leave a small amount of beer behind. Swirl the glop really thoroughly by swirling the carboy. Sanitize a glass pitcher and a few pint-size Mason jars. Decant the slurry into the pitcher and pour from the pitcher into the jars. Cover with sanitized lids and refrigerate until your Mild wort is ready for pitching. You can adjust the Mr Malty calculator for time stored.

Click to expand...

I ended up using this method as I did not have time to do the whole washing thing. It is the next morning and I have 1/2 Krausen going. A few questions:

1) How long is the refrigerated yeast viable in the sealed mason jar?

2) Is it better to use this 1st generation stored yeast or harvest again from the 2nd generation after it is racked out of fermentor?

3) What is a good fermentation temp for a English Mild with Nottingham? It is currently at 62 F (I read that Notty can get tartness at its lower temp range and that doesn't sound good for this style)

I just listened to the Jamil Show episode about brewing a mild, which I'll be doing tomorrow night. He says to use 1 Wyeast packet or White Labs tube. He specifically states to not pitch it on th yeast cake.

A few answers:

1. In my experience, you lose 25% viability every seven days of cold storage. The Mr Malty calculator can make those adjustments. So long as there's a layer of beer on top of the slurry it can keep quite a while; brewing yeast stores best under beer (duh!).

2. I've had excellent results harvesting up to a dozen generations, depending on strain. I can go more generations with Wyeast Belgian Ardennes, for example, than Ringwood (~10 generations) or WLP051 Cal V (~12) - I've done out to 20 pitches of harvested Ardennes without treating the yeast in any way. That, mind, is on a commercial (brewpub) system, where I draw fresh yeast from the bottom of a conical and pitch it into a freshly-prepared wort. The same principle holds, however, with any fermenter at any scale; many are the times I've harvested from a newly-racked 15bbl open fermenter, stored the yeast for a few days, and pitched to a fresh wort. Your generations will depend on the viability of your yeast and how long it's been stored. But you can definitely harvest your second generation, and the third, and the fourth...

3. As Mild should have a certain amount of fruity esters - it is an English ale, after all - I recommend fermenting Nottingham in the middle to upper end of the recommended temperature range. Frankly, I don't really like Notty for Mild; I prefer a less-attenuative, more estery strain like S-04 or Windsor.

Note one important thing: If you're going to store the slurry for any period of time - say, longer than a week - it's best to wash it. Harvested slurry is best used quickly, within a few days of harvesting.

@ Bassman - I presume he's underpitching for a reason. I can only imagine it's to encourage ester production.

Cheers!

Bob

Well, little late for that. Orfy's recipe is rather time tested using Nottingham, so I feel pretty confident. Not sure if the re-pitching will be detrimental or not, guess time will tell.