Reusing yeast cake

[Tnoodle]

I just moved 2 gallons of hard lemonade out of my Mr. Beer fermentor to secondary, and decided to make a batch of cheap wine so I poured all of my ingredients on top of the sludge hat was at the bottom of he fermentor. I guess my question is will his produce off flavors with my wine? I know that it will probably keep some of the lemonade flavor but will there be any others? Also how long can yeast keep reproducing, is there a limit on how many batches you can make on just one pitching? I would think as long as there are nutrients and the atmosphere doesn't become toxic the yeast could go indefinitely. Am I wrong?

 

[tchuklobrau]

If wine yeast is the same as beer yeast i believe 5 generations is all you want to go otherwise you risk mutations which may not give good flavors. However a thread was up on the topic of reusing wine yeast not long ago. General concensus was dont do it. wine yesat is cheap why risk off flavors.

 

[Tnoodle]

Thanks we will see how my batch turns out.

 

[RobWalker]

If you drain the liquid out as much as possible, you'll just get a little of the previous batch mixed in - but meh, it'll dissipate enough over 2 gallons. It won't produce any off flavours through past fermentation to my knowledge...

 

[Tnoodle]

Awesome, I can't wait to try it. It took off the minute I added my ingredients. The smell is a little different than what I'm used to, but I'm going to let it ride and see what comes out.

 

[Tnoodle]

Well my friends it was a good thing this was a cheap experiment, I went to rack it today and it smelled and tasted terrible. It was very sour, not as in tart but sour as in infected, and the smell was like a lemon and a dead animal punching you in the face. So I poured it down the drain and played taps while doing so. I am now at 10-3, 10 gallons have turned out great and 3 gallons have not.

 

[Bilbobaker]

I often jump start a new batch of frozen fruit into wine with the lees and pulp from the first racking of a previous batch.
Taken from the primary bucket fermentation vessel.
It is extremely fast and produces great wine.
I only do this one time per two batches.

 

[Tnoodle]

There might have been to many leftovers from the last batch, or the two flavors didn't like each other. I just started the batch over again.

 

[RobWalker]

Sorry for hijack - how long can you store a yeast cake under airlock before it goes bad?

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

I would think the yeast were stressed from the acidity of the lemonade moreso than it being a reused cake.

 

[Tnoodle]

I didn't even think of the yeast being stressed, the lemonade turned out great so I didn't even worry about it. I guess adding nutrients after they have been stressed wouldn't help.

 

[mutedog]

if you want to keep it for more than a day or so, I recommend washing the yeast and storing it in the fridge, rather than spread out on the bottom of a carboy...