Why Not to Pitch On Your Yeast Cake

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I cant wait to try it Scott,its been done fermenting for about 2 days.Pitching on a cake rules ,i've only had one batch ferment quicker and that was a dry yeast packet???
 
There have been quite a few comments on this thread that express great enthusiasm over the quickness and robustness of fermentation when pitching on the cake. This seems to be to be a very one-dimensional view of fermentation quality. You could probably also ferment at 80 and get fast violent fermentation as well, but we all know that this would not be a good thing. These comments seem to me to also miss the point of the original post, which is that overpitching does not provide an optimum and repeatable result.

I have pitched on the cake a number of times, had good results from it, and I love how low effort it is. I'm certainly not arguing that anyone should or should not pitch on the cake. But I can't help but point out the superficiality of these arguments in favor of pitching on the cake just because its fast.
 
carp said:
There have been quite a few comments on this thread that express great enthusiasm over the quickness and robustness of fermentation when pitching on the cake. This seems to be to be a very one-dimensional view of fermentation quality. You could probably also ferment at 80 and get fast violent fermentation as well, but we all know that this would not be a good thing. These comments seem to me to also miss the point of the original post, which is that overpitching does not provide an optimum and repeatable result.

I have pitched on the cake a number of times, had good results from it, and I love how low effort it is. I'm certainly not arguing that anyone should or should not pitch on the cake. But I can't help but point out the superficiality of these arguments in favor of pitching on the cake just because its fast.
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Well Said....
 
carp said:
There have been quite a few comments on this thread that express great enthusiasm over the quickness and robustness of fermentation when pitching on the cake. This seems to be to be a very one-dimensional view of fermentation quality. You could probably also ferment at 80 and get fast violent fermentation as well, but we all know that this would not be a good thing. These comments seem to me to also miss the point of the original post, which is that overpitching does not provide an optimum and repeatable result.

I have pitched on the cake a number of times, had good results from it, and I love how low effort it is. I'm certainly not arguing that anyone should or should not pitch on the cake. But I can't help but point out the superficiality of these arguments in favor of pitching on the cake just because its fast.
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Excellent point. A fast ferment is not necessarily a good thing.
 
I agree with carp as well.

I think what everyone should take away from this thread is that pitching on a yeast cake is similar to not taking gravity readings. You may end up with good beer, but, if you don't, troubleshooting becomes difficult because you have another unknown variable. You will also have trouble repeating a good beer for the same reason. That's the real lesson here, not whether pitching on a yeast cake works or not (it clearly does).
 
mojotele said:
I agree with carp as well.

I think what everyone should take away from this thread is that pitching on a yeast cake is similar to not taking gravity readings. You may end up with good beer, but, if you don't, troubleshooting becomes difficult because you have another unknown variable. You will also have trouble repeating a good beer for the same reason. That's the real lesson here, not whether pitching on a yeast cake works or not (it clearly does).
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I agree with carp as well. Slow and long fermentation is better, and can also be accomplished by pitching on a 1/2 yeast cake under controlled temps. Fortunately for me, my basement floor keeps my fermenters at about 65F.

In addition to using 1/2 yeast cakes, I do NOT take hydrometer readings.

I primary for 2-3 months, secondary if I need the yeast but don't have time to bottle. If not I have primaried for 4 months before.
 
Lots of great stuff here! Thanx guys for all the great stuff!

So, reading this post, along with the graphical post on yeast washing, has convinced me...its time to start harvesting yeast. For a few reason...money, being 1 and I do know that yeast can take on characteristics of the beer its brewered in. So, reusing yeast can definitely give your beer unique flavors typical of your beer.

So

Bob said:
In my opinion, brewing a starter from washed, stored yeast is no different than brewing a starter from any other package - step it up until you arrive at a sufficient quantity of slurry to inoculate your wort according to your calculations (well, to be safe, a little more).

You dig?

Bob
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If I dont have a microscope, how do I know when my yeast starter is ready? Whether it be from a new vial of yeast, or a jar of harvested yeast. I've been doing starters now for about 3 months and found my results to be much better...but, as Bob said (I believe) if its worth doing, its worth doing right...at least that's how me, and half my pay check, feel about brewing! haha

However, I can tell you that i'm the most hard core of all my friends that brew. And a lot of them make great beer...but do they make the same beer again. No way! They never have the same OG and FG...sometimes they get stuck fermentation, or too much fermentation lag. I think the whole point of this thread isn't really to tell you what you are, and AREN'T doing wrong...its to try and point us in the right direction of making GREAT, REPRODUCIBLE beer every time. You can make great tasting beer without harvesting, but can you make it again? This will just help you take 1 step closer to remaking that great beer you just made last week, or last month. At least, that's the theory, right??
 
mojotele said:
I agree with carp as well.

I think what everyone should take away from this thread is that pitching on a yeast cake is similar to not taking gravity readings. You may end up with good beer, but, if you don't, troubleshooting becomes difficult because you have another unknown variable. You will also have trouble repeating a good beer for the same reason. That's the real lesson here, not whether pitching on a yeast cake works or not (it clearly does).
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I think that just pitching onto a cake because it is there and easy may be something like not taking hydrometer readings, but when I brew a beer specifically so I can pitch a large barleywine or RIS on that beer's cake I don't think I'm going to have trouble repeating that whole process, nor is it for laziness that I do it, but I need the high cell count to chew through all the fermentables in the big beers, and get a good attenuation.
 
conpewter said:
I think that just pitching onto a cake because it is there and easy may be something like not taking hydrometer readings, but when I brew a beer specifically so I can pitch a large barleywine or RIS on that beer's cake I don't think I'm going to have trouble repeating that whole process, nor is it for laziness that I do it, but I need the high cell count to chew through all the fermentables in the big beers, and get a good attenuation.
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Well depending on the beer you brewed, you don't need that high of a cell count.

If you can brew a 1.030 ish beer (60/-, ordinary bitter, light american lager) that would probably be close to the yeasted needed for a 1.1+ beer (barleywine, RIS, huge dopplebock or baltic porter).

If I were repitching from an APA to a barleywine, I would not pitch all of the yeast.
 
Just out of curiosity, I've heard that larger commercial breweries like Sierra Nevada rely on massive pitch rates in order to go from wort to bottle in something like 3 days. I know we're talking about a very different scale here, but how can it be fine for them and a big no-no for us small timers? Would they turn out a much better product if they slowed down and pitched less yeast? Is it a noticeable difference?
 
masonsjax said:
Just out of curiosity, I've heard that larger commercial breweries like Sierra Nevada rely on massive pitch rates in order to go from wort to bottle in something like 3 days. I know we're talking about a very different scale here, but how can it be fine for them and a big no-no for us small timers? Would they turn out a much better product if they slowed down and pitched less yeast? Is it a noticeable difference?
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You heard wrong. Sierra Nevada does not bottle in 3 days and their pitching rate is comparable to the rates advocated by Fix, Bamforth, Jamil Z etc.

Pitching huge rates would only speed up fermentation by a max of the 6 give or take hours of lag time that results from the rates advocated in literature.
 
Again, whitelabs does not produce shiny new yeast by magic.

The strain of yeast you use is probably 3000 years old.

Pitching on part of a yeast cake is as reliable a cell count as a starter if you don't have a way to count the viable yeast either way.
 
cheezydemon3 said:
Again, whitelabs does not produce shiny new yeast by magic.

The strain of yeast you use is probably 3000 years old.

Pitching on part of a yeast cake is as reliable a cell count as a starter if you don't have a way to count the viable yeast either way.
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Nobody said you couldn't estimate the cells in a yeast cake, but when you repitch in the entire cake what you are doing is not caring how many cells there are.
 
This thread has been mostly about the effects of overpitching. Some are combatting this by eliminating half of the cake. I would think that repitching the yeast cake, whether half or whole, would still be bad for the beer because of all the trub. If you are going through several cycles of trub, won't this have a negative impact on your beer? While I agree that pitch rate is very important, clean yeast seems even more important.
 
conpewter said:
I think that just pitching onto a cake because it is there and easy may be something like not taking hydrometer readings, but when I brew a beer specifically so I can pitch a large barleywine or RIS on that beer's cake I don't think I'm going to have trouble repeating that whole process, nor is it for laziness that I do it, but I need the high cell count to chew through all the fermentables in the big beers, and get a good attenuation.
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That's cool. I don't think there's really anything wrong with that. You're clearly happy with the results so keep on doing it.

If you weren't happy with the result, though, it would be tough to fully define the problem. That's all I'm saying.
 
Can someone please do a test next brew day - split the batch into two fermenters, pitch the one onto a yeast cake and use the recommended pitch rate in the other (same yeast strain), ferment and age as per usual and then blind taste. It seems easy enough. My next brew (tomorrow) is a big belgain so no good for the test.
 
Bru said:
Can someone please do a test next brew day - split the batch into two fermenters, pitch the one onto a yeast cake and use the recommended pitch rate in the other (same yeast strain), ferment and age as per usual and then blind taste. It seems easy enough. My next brew (tomorrow) is a big belgain so no good for the test.
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Actually it seems like the differences would be the most pronounced in a big belgian, because you have the combination of a lot of yeast activity and a yeast which produces a ton of flavors. If there was a difference it would show up most substantially in this case.

If you couldn't taste the difference between two big belgians, I don't think anyone could say that it would affect the taste between two small lagers.
 
I doubt that a single such experiment would prove or demonstrate anything. A significant aspect of the premise of the OP is that you would have to do SEVERAL such tests and compare the quality and repeatability of each approach. As another poster wrote recently, its certainly possible to make great beer pitching on the cake, but that one is more likely to make consistently great beer by taking more care with yeast quantities.
 
This is my plan - feel free to comment :
brew day tomorrow - Belgain Golden Strong Ale with WLP530 1.061 (exlcudes sugar added at 1 week - total OG : 1.085 - 2L starter)

In four weeks I will brew a Belgian Dark Strong Ale 1.082 (22L batch)
Split into two 11L batches
Remove 1 cup of slurry from cake of Golden (which will be racked to secondary same day)
Pitch one batch onto remainder of cake
Pitch 1 cup slurry into other batch

Is this scientific enough for a test ?
 
carp said:
I doubt that a single such experiment would prove or demonstrate anything. A significant aspect of the premise of the OP is that you would have to do SEVERAL such tests and compare the quality and repeatability of each approach. As another poster wrote recently, its certainly possible to make great beer pitching on the cake, but that one is more likely to make consistently great beer by taking more care with yeast quantities.
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Understood, but we are talking science, and if pitching on a yeast cake yields an equal, maybe superior beer sometimes, there must be a reason. The trick is to understand it, and duplicate the results you want. That's how human innovation has always worked. That's why we don't use model T's anymore.
 
Wait, why haven't any brewing scientists thought to test the impact of yeast pitching rates on the qualitative aspects of beer?
:confused:

The pitching rates advocated in literature were determined to be the rates that produced the best quality beer by scientists who study such things for a living.
 
Bru said:
I'd prefer to see results in a homebrew setting. Its an easy enough experiment and will put all the debate to rest.
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What if I told you that countless homebrewers had already done this experiment? What if I told you that the experiments were generally poorly designed and inconclusive? What if I told you that one of these experiments was documented in a recent BYO?

Why will the 500,000th iteration of this experiment put the debate at rest?
 
Bru said:
I'd prefer to see results in a homebrew setting. Its an easy enough experiment and will put all the debate to rest.
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It most certainly will not put the debate to rest, and I'll tell you why: If you notice no difference, brewers like myself who like to understand the entire process of brewing from a scientific standpoint will ignore your results in favor of those found in more rigorous scientific studies.

On the other hand, if you do notice a difference, people who enjoy pitching on the yeast cake will disregard your results or find some way to rationalize things because in their experience, their beer tastes just as good if not better when they pitch on the yeast cake.
 
slowbie said:
It most certainly will not put the debate to rest, and I'll tell you why: If you notice no difference, brewers like myself who like to understand the entire process of brewing from a scientific standpoint will ignore your results in favor of those found in more rigorous scientific studies.

On the other hand, if you do notice a difference, people who enjoy pitching on the yeast cake will disregard your results or find some way to rationalize things because in their experience, their beer tastes just as good if not better when they pitch on the yeast cake.
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Bingo.

If you really want to study this, take the George Fix approach and brew using both techniques and then send both beers off to several competitions and see if their is a strong preference for one or the other by the judges. This is the best type of study feedback (double blind and the participants didn't even know they were participating, let alone the nature of the study). If you taste the beers yourself, you'll just confirm your own beliefs, that's why scientists have rigorous protocols.
 
I personally agree that the evidence shows that over pitching is negative but there seems to be those who disagree or at the very least disagree that it makes any noticable or negative difference.
Why is there debate if the results are so clear ?
A few objective tests will put all debate (and lets face it theres plenty) to rest. And whats more objective than a blind tasting?
Besides - I want to see the results for myself.
And I disagree that the test has to be done repeatedly. If it makes such a difference the results should be clear.
Is there anything on HBT where its been done ? Ive searched and can't find anything.
 
I don't think the debate is about better or poorer beer. The debate was about that pitching on the yeast cake is a bad practice and it's always detrimental to beer. And I couldn't disagree more. It is just a practice, and if you do it right and carefully, you obtain great results (and also have a lot of advantages and benefits for homebrewers that scientist wont ever evaluate).
It's like saying that liquid yeast is better than dry yeast. Then using dry yeast is always detrimental to beer.
(Or at least, that is what I understood from the OP).
 
Blanda said:
It's like saying that liquid yeast is better than dry yeast. Then using dry yeast is always detrimental to beer.
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No, it's not. There are no scientific studies to support the claim that dry yeast is detrimental to beer. But there are studies showing that overpitching is detrimental.
 
Im on the fence on this one - I take no stand and have no current belief that may sway my opinion. I simply want to see if a.) there is a difference and b.) is it negative or positive.

I agree your "George Fix approach" is best. But theres no need for a competition - there must be beer judges who would be willing to take part without knowing what the test was.


remilard said:
Bingo.

If you really want to study this, take the George Fix approach and brew using both techniques and then send both beers off to several competitions and see if their is a strong preference for one or the other by the judges. This is the best type of study feedback (double blind and the participants didn't even know they were participating, let alone the nature of the study). If you taste the beers yourself, you'll just confirm your own beliefs, that's why scientists have rigorous protocols.
Click to expand...
 
Bru said:
I agree your "George Fix approach" is best. But theres no need for a competition - there must be beer judges who would be willing to take part without knowing what the test was.
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Maybe, but it is generally cheaper and easier to just send the beers to competitions rather than trying to assemble a panel of experienced judges ad-hoc.
 
Bru said:
Im on the fence on this one - I take no stand and have no current belief that may sway my opinion. I simply want to see if a.) there is a difference and b.) is it negative or positive.

I agree your "George Fix approach" is best. But theres no need for a competition - there must be beer judges who would be willing to take part without knowing what the test was.
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Join a homebrew club and you'll at least have access to experienced brewers and beer drinkers if not actual certified judges.

I thought you were only allowed to enter one brew per category in most homebrew comps...but I haven't participated in that many so I dunno.

The thing I took home most from the OP was actually estimating a cell count of the settled yeast. I already was trying to pitch the correct amount and trying to practice good sanitation. IMO, the Mr Malty PRC is grossly deficient to the unedumacated in this area. I was pitching about half of the amount of slurry the OP recommended because that's what I thought the PRC was telling me to pitch. I still can't corroborate the PRC and OP's numbers. But just after this thread was made I pitched a ~13P Moose Drool inspired ale with ~225mL of washed Notty and it came out really good. So there's one more data point among the bazillions.

And yes, I actually washed yeast that costs $1.50 per packet. Jamil says it get's better in future gens.:p
 
I wonder if there would be any harm in partially washing your yeast cake and then pitching just the suspended yeast?

I've done this 1 time and had good luck with it.

Basically, I just dumped about a 1/2 gallon of water onto my yeast cake and gave it a good swirl. Then after about 15 minutes, I poured off a quart or so into my new primary and then racked onto it.

This left all the garbage behind and gave me a good clean slury to pitch.:D

The only problem is that I have no idea what the cell count would be.

Any comments?

Bull
 

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