Reusing a year old Roeselare Cake

I have a Flanders Red that has been on Roeselare for coming up on a year now. I'm going to be adding some tart cherry concentrate pretty soon. I have read a lot about Roeselare working even better after the 1st generation, but had a couple quick questions. It's my first time reusing a cake, and would hate to ruin a good culture that is really just getting going by the sounds of it.

1) How should I go about adding the new wort to the cake? Should I attempt washing the cake at all, or just dump the new wort straight into the old carboy?

2) I'll need a fresh pitch of Saccharomyces of course. Any suggestions? More towards a Belgian strain like the blend, or something a little more neutral? What Belgian strain is in there, if known?

3) I'm guessing I should rack the beer off the cake and into secondary rather than putting the fresh wort onto the cake with the concentrate present. Has anyone had tried fresh wort over a cake that has been fruited, and how did it go?

mitchard said:

1) How should I go about adding the new wort to the cake? Should I attempt washing the cake at all, or just dump the new wort straight into the old carboy?

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yup, you can just pitch on top of the old cake. expect it to sour quickly and intensely.

personally, that seems like a really big pitch of LAB and brett, so i'd be tempted to only use part of the cake, maybe a quarter... but plenty of other people have had great success using the whole cake.

mitchard said:

2) I'll need a fresh pitch of Saccharomyces of course. Any suggestions? More towards a Belgian strain like the blend, or something a little more neutral? What Belgian strain is in there, if known?

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personal preference, but i always go with a belgian strain. i want as much yeast character as possible in my sours. but nothing wrong with going with a clean ale strain, for example if you want the sourness to have a clear path to your taste buds...

mitchard said:

3) I'm guessing I should rack the beer off the cake and into secondary rather than putting the fresh wort onto the cake with the concentrate present.

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i'm unclear what you're proposing here... you have beer A that is a year old. you want to add concentrate to it, and also re-use the cake under A for beer B. is that right? and, you're wondering if you should add concentrate to beer A while on the cake, let that ferment out, and then re-use the cake? if so, yes, you can do that and you'll be fine. you'll be leaving so little behind that it won't be perceptible in beer B (or it will be very subtle).

what i would do it rack beer A to another vessel and add concentrate there. then add wort B to the now-vacated former residence of beer A.

Thanks for the info!

And yeah, you are correct on point three. I'll probably go the secondary route before adding the concentrate, as you suggested. Thinking an Oude Bruin will go onto the Roeselare cake next! I haven't done a darker sour yet, so thats definitely up there on my list.