Harvest Notingham for Breakfast Stout

[drudini11]

I have a Irish Red in primary right now that will be racked to secondary next week. I used Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast for the batch. Was planning on brewing a 3 gallon BIAB breakfast stout same weekend and thinking about harvesting some of the yeast cake from the irish to use for the stout rather then going with the SA-05 that I got. Anyone use Nottingham for a stout before? This would also be my first time reusing the yeast from a previous batch but thinking as long as I keep everything sanitary should be OK but if there are any gotchas with this I'd appreciate any advice.

 

[Calder]

I think Notty would go better with a stout than S-05 most of the time anyway.

Sure re-use the cake. Make sure you use a sanitized container to store the slurry in, store in the fridge and use within a reasonable time (some say a week, I'd say you could go a month).

My general rule (and there is some logic behind it), is to use about a quarter if the cake for a beer of the same size and OG. So if I use the cake/slurry for a similar beer with a similar OG and size, I would use about a quarter of the cake. If I were to use it for a beer with 2X the OG, and 2X the volume, I would use the whole cake. Remember, more is not necessarily better; the more old yeast you use, the less new yeast it creates. Sometimes, using less than optimum is also better, such as in the case of Belgians, as it helps increase the esters created by the yeast.

 

[BigFloyd]

Notty would be ok in a stout, just be sure to ferment it on the cool side (around 60), and definitely keep it under 68 (beer temp) when it's active.

 

[stevedasleeve]

I've done this a million times, but I have had one beer quasi ruined - meat flavor from dead yeast. Now I don't bother, $4 seems quite a decent investment so I just pitch a new packet.