Reusing (portion of) yeast cake from RIS

I brewed an RIS (OG=1.101) a few weeks ago, will transfer this weekend and I'm hoping to brew an IPA (OG=1.057) this weekend, too. Could I use a portion of the yeast slurry from the RIS for the IPA or will I run into issues with "stressed" yeast or off flavors? I've read it's best to go the other way (low OG first, then high OG) but if I only pull a portion of the cake could I use it? Alternatively, are there any issues with washing the yeast and then using it?

Thanks

The problem is the unknown. Yes, you could have some relatively healthy yeast to harvest. No, you don't know how stressed or viable that yeast will be. If it was a rare yeast that you want to save, you could harvest some and test it out in a starter. If its WY 1056 etc, I'd personally just buy a fresh pack and not have to worry about fermentation issues.

Making a starter should increase viability and vitality even with stressed yeast. I would think that if you take a small portion of the cake and grow it up fairly large, it should be good as new.


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I can't grab the source right now, but I recall reading something a few years back that Chris White said about not reusing yeast harvested from high gravity batches. Something about cell damage and petite mutations as the yeast got exposed to the upper range of its alcohol tolerance.

"Washing" won't fix yeast cellular damage issues.