reusing a yeast cake for a stuck fermentation

[grammatron]

So I've got an English Strong Ale that I brewed back in december. It spent 3.5 weeks in the primary, and then I racked to the secondary long after evidence of fermentation had stopped. I then tasted a sample and of course it's super sweet. The hydrometer reading showed me that the gravity was way higher than the target, and I suddenly realized the importance of using the hydrometer to determine when fermentation is done. Lesson learned.

But here's the problem: I moved the carboy to a warmer spot in the house and repitched w/ a wyeast smack pack of Irish Ale yeast. There was bubbling, things seemed to be slowly moving along. 10 days later I checked the gravity again, and it hadn't moved at all.

In the meantime I brewed a cream ale, which I'm preparing to rack to secondary today (I took a reading and everything!). I've heard that racking a stuck beer onto a yeast cake from another beer will often get things going, so I'm considering doing just that. My question is whether or not the yeast from the cream ale is going to produce what I'm after in an English Strong Ale. The cream ale was fermented w/ a wyeast smack pack of British Ale. My gut tells me the British Ale yeast is neutral enough that it shouldn't affect the flavor of the ESA, but as a noob I figured I'd better run all of this by someone before I do anything.

 

[maltMonkey]

what was your recipe and mash temperature (if all grain)?

 

[grammatron]

Both were extract. The ESA recipe was:
.75 lb Crystal
.25 lb Black Patent Malt
4.5 liters (4 cans) Coopers Pale Ale LME
.5 lb black strap molasses
1.5 oz chinook hops

The cream ale was:
6 oz 20L Crystal Malt
4 oz Torrified Wheat
4 lbs light DME
1 lb dry rice syrup
1 oz Tettnang hops

 

[maltMonkey]

what was your starting and (current) final gravity on the English Strong Ale? Also, what yeast did you originally pitch into the ESA?

 

[grammatron]

For the ESA, the starting gravity by the recipe was 1.093. I didn't get a good reading when I tested it at the point of moving it to the primary. The target is 1.022, and I'm currently at 1.031.

 

[maltMonkey]

Hmmmm......you're definitely under-attenuated, so I say give it a shot. I would pitch it, give it a little stir, wait one week, then move it to another secondary to get it off the yeast.

Out of curiosity, what have your fermentation temperatures looked like?

 

[grammatron]

I think it got too cold in the primary which is what caused the fermentation to drop off in the first place. It was in a basement closet and probably dropped down to 62 or 63 or so at night. I moved it up into a warmer room where it's been sitting at 68-70 since then.