Reusing Yeast?

[WenValley]

I'm starting to hook up to the advantages of reusing active yeast cakes. Is this a common practice?

I currently have a Honey Ale that's been in the primary for just over a week, and I have a Simcoe IPA that's been in the primary for a week, and I have a Exract Lager that's been in primary for two days.

I want to keep brewing to fill the pipeline, how would I reuse these yeast cakes?

One was a smack pack, one was a dry yeast, and one was a vial of liquid yeast, I can check my brew notes for the exact yeast.

I'm finding that the "pipeline" is much harder to fill and keep filled than I thought. Some of the beers that take two, three, or more weeks in primary really require more carboys.

So many beer, so little time....




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[ChshreCat]

Take a look at the "yeast washing illustrated" post. It has TONS of information on washing and reusing your yeast, getting multiple batches from one yeast cake.

You can also just rack your beer off your yeast and dump a bigger (or at least similar) beer right on the yeast cake, but in most cases that would be overpitching. Many people do that and make great beer from it, overpitching or not. It's an especially useful technique if you're brewing a huge RIS or something like that where you need a ginormous starter.

I like the fact that my spellchecker doesn't flag "ginormous" as misspelled.