Pouring onto yeast cake

[Owly055]

This evening I'm going to do a brew and pour the cooled wort onto the yeast cake in a fermenter I just emptied. My procedure was to add some boiled and chilled water to the ferementer to swirl up yeast and trub, and pour most of it off leaving a decent amount of fairly dense yeast cake that was stuck to the bottom of the fermenter.

In discussing saving time, Calichusetts suggested pouring onto the yeast cake and I've been wrestling with how to do this due to the large amount of trub I get from doing BIAB......Swirl and dump seemed to work fairly well, but of course left the inside walls of my fermenter filmed with yeast and trub.......... not really a problem.... it will of course wash down and settle when I add the fresh wort.

It is doubtful that any significant flavor consequences will result, but it will be interesting to see. The two beers are not that far apart anyway.

My fermenters are all clear and all wide mouth, my brews are 2.5 gallons. Any suggestions as to how to do this more elegantly would be appreciated. This has several good arguments in it's favor, one is not having to clean the fermenter, another is not having to mess with pitching yeast, and another is having a nice heavy pitch of presumably good healthy yeast. I normally top crop with a sterile ladle. I'm often brewing so close together (time wise), that I simply ladle the krausen from one fermenter into another.


H.W.

 

[comet]

I've been considering doing this with my next batch, as my Kolsch is finished fermenting and being racked to a keg while I am brewing a Dusseldorf Altbier. I've never actually just pitched into a dirty fermenter, but often just wash the yeast and fermenter, then pitch the same yeast back in the same fermenter with fresh wort..

 

[j1n]

Why dont you wash the yeast first then use that to pitch.

 

[Owly055]

Why dont you wash the yeast first then use that to pitch.

I essentially did that..... the sterile water swirled up far more trub than yeast, and it was carried away when I dumped, leaving just yeast in the bottom and some trub on the walls.... not very much. Really a much simplified yeast washing technique.....

Top cropping is extremely easy, and I always have top crop in the fridge......A far simpler project than actual yeast washing. To resort to yeast washing kind of defeats the object here, which is not to save money on yeast, but to streamline my operation. A similar beer going into the same fermenter that was just emptied on the same day....... I don't have to mess with yeast, and I don't have to clean the fermenter.

I'm intentionally being "sloppy" if you care to call it that......but doing it in a carefully calculated way that should not compromise the beer............. Time will tell. It's the same way I've made yoghurt and kefir..... the fermenter is teeming with exactly the microbes I want........... yeast........... Why remove them and fiddle with them? Just a greater opportunity for them to become corrupted.


H.W.

 

[baulz]

Why dont you wash the yeast first then use that to pitch.

Saves time and cleaning to just dump on the cake, I do it occasionaly. Pouring a big IPA onto a light ale cake works well, not a good idea to do it the other way around.

 

[Owly055]

Saves time and cleaning to just dump on the cake, I do it occasionaly. Pouring a big IPA onto a light ale cake works well, not a good idea to do it the other way around.

I did this last evening, and it worked extremely well....... I'll do it again as I like to keep fermenters full. My usual procedure is to dump out the trub and wash the fermenter out well, then fill it with starsan until I'm ready to pour in my wort. I left the fermenter empty all day...... Next time, I'll to my swirl and dump during the boil.

I did a number of unconventional things yesterday including the 4 hour "mash while you work".... doughed in and insulated then left to do a job, and my experiment with hops in wort in a sealed jar filled to the brim, and dropped back into the boil.


H.W.

 

[TastyAdventure]

Question: about how much of a yeast cake would be close enough to a proper pitch rate for a same size and gravity batch? 1/2 cake?

 

[Zepth]

Question: about how much of a yeast cake would be close enough to a proper pitch rate for a same size and gravity batch? 1/2 cake?

Run what your batch was through a yeast calculator as the "starter." Do a quick "ideal pitch calculator." Divide one by the other and you'll get the appropriate fraction of cake to use. If I had to guess it would be closer to 1/5 or so, which would be a 1 gal starter for a 5 gal batch. Kind of.

 

[thomasjr16]

This evening I'm going to do a brew and pour the cooled wort onto the yeast cake in a fermenter I just emptied. My procedure was to add some boiled and chilled water to the ferementer to swirl up yeast and trub, and pour most of it off leaving a decent amount of fairly dense yeast cake that was stuck to the bottom of the fermenter.



In discussing saving time, Calichusetts suggested pouring onto the yeast cake and I've been wrestling with how to do this due to the large amount of trub I get from doing BIAB......Swirl and dump seemed to work fairly well, but of course left the inside walls of my fermenter filmed with yeast and trub.......... not really a problem.... it will of course wash down and settle when I add the fresh wort.



It is doubtful that any significant flavor consequences will result, but it will be interesting to see. The two beers are not that far apart anyway.



My fermenters are all clear and all wide mouth, my brews are 2.5 gallons. Any suggestions as to how to do this more elegantly would be appreciated. This has several good arguments in it's favor, one is not having to clean the fermenter, another is not having to mess with pitching yeast, and another is having a nice heavy pitch of presumably good healthy yeast. I normally top crop with a sterile ladle. I'm often brewing so close together (time wise), that I simply ladle the krausen from one fermenter into another.





H.W.

I came across this article/experiment in another thread about trub in the fermenter. Good read and I'm no longer concerned with trub making its ways to my fermenter

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/

 

[masonsjax]

Forget the boiled water, it's not necessary. Just leave a small amount of beer from the previous batch in the fermenter for swirling up. Pour out some of the cake (I just eyeball it) so you're not way over pitching. I've done this for almost every batch I've made ever, probably approaching 400 AG batches. I generally do about 8 or 10 batches in a row like this before starting over with fresh yeast starters made from the first generation harvest in my fridge. I very rarely buy new yeast. Works great! If you want you can use a calculator and pour into a measuring bowl what you need, dump or harvest the rest, and pour back in the fermentor.