Racking onto yeast cake question (yes, I did a search before starting this thread!)

Let's take the whole overpitching thing out of the conversation (I personally don't think it's that much of a factor).

It seems the biggest issue then with racking onto a previous yeast cake is the fermenting wort is exposed to the previous krausen ring.

Now, will THAT expose the beer to any potential off-flavors, or is that debatable?

 

It's seems logical, that if the previous brew was a higher IBU than the new....there might be some trouble. Personnaly I've never had a problem with pitching on a yeast cake. I know that the "profesionals" say it's wrong....but what the hell....

 

I'll know in a couple of months. I have just racked to my yeast cake for the second consecutive time. i.e. the yeast has been in the primaries for three brews. (3 -10 gallon batches of light lagers for summer)
All appears well at the moment.

P.S. I don't think I'll do it again with this yeast. I'm going to clean the primaries after this one.

 

Can you not transfer the yeast slurry into a clean and sanitized primary? I use Ale Pales not carboys, but I can't see a reason it would make it more difficult. I think most yeast can survive some small amount of agitation prior to being fed again. Just a thought. I'm no expert here.

Salute!

 

I've never had an issue with the krausen ring during a yeast pitch. There is so much more clean krausen happening there to overwhelm it, plus the yeast can just as easily clean up after those compounds as the ones they generated during this fermentation, if you let them.

But if you are in a bucket, however, you can somewhat clean out the ring. What I do is get a bunch of paper towels and either a bowl of sanitizer or my spray bottle of starsan. crumple up a couple sheets in such a way the it kinda cups in your hand. Wet it down with starsan, then carefully with the paper in your hand and your palm facing up, start the paper towel below the krausen ring and wipe upwards in one pass.

Any clumps of krausen should fall into the paper towel and not into the fermenter. I change paper towels after each pass, and work clockwise around the inside of the bucket. Once I've got all the clumpy stuff that could fall in, I then go around with a fresh towel or even a sponge soaked in sanitizer, as many times as it takes to actually clean the ring way. And then I spray it all down again with sanitizer.

With this in mind, you might want to consider only pitching onto yeast cakes that are in buckets, because there is really no easy way to do it in a carboy.

Good luck.

 

If you are taking out overpitching, you can probably take this out and be happy with your beer.

There are various ideas on the krausen ring increasing bitterness.

But if you are happy overpitching, you should be happy with the krausen ring in there.

I have done the lazy way. It does work.

Now I simply sanitize a measuring cup, scoop out the slurry I need into a clean, sanitized fermenter, and rack into that.

 

I have re-pitched many times and have detected no unusual bitterness in the finished product. I do tend to be a bit heavy on the hops in all of my beers, so I have not had a situation where I have dumped a low bitterness wort (with the expectation of ending up with a malty flavored final beer) onto a high bitterness cake. Also, if you use Fermcap, the krausen head is much less thick and, hence, the remaining ring is significantly more narrow - decreases the old ring surface area your wort contacts. Finally, if you fill the fermentor up to just below the old ring, then the wort is not in constant contact with the ring in any event (ie, the new krausen ring may contact the old ring, but the wort itself will not, other than sloshing while moving). All of that should seriously reduce the chance of the old ring causing off flavors, assuming an old ring could do so (which I don't really believe anyway).

 

Well, as far as off flavors go, I won't pitch on a yeast cake again! About 4 brews ago, I made and Ipa and BM's Cream of Three Crops both with S-05 in two different carboys. I then made Ed's Haus Ale (to pitch on the IPA's cake) and a dry stout (to pitch on the cream ales cake). While I think the strong flavors of the stout hid most of the off flavors, the APA just tasted weird. The only way I can describe it is when you let a beer sit on a yeast cake too long (which in this case I did not).

 

Thanks for all the comments folks!

Well, I generally do harvest yeast and transfer it, etc.

And now I only ferment in kegs. But once in a while I feel lazy and don't really want to spend over an hour cleaning/rinsing/sanitizing a keg(s), so I've thought to just rack a new beer onto the yeast cake once the previous beer is transferred out of that keg (everything is pushed with CO2 so it's all a pretty healthy environment I believe).

 

That's exactly what i do. I use about 1/3 of the yeast cake for a new batch.
Since i brew 10 gal batches, during a brew day I simply rack one of the previous 5 gal fermenters into a keg, and then use about 1/3 of the yeast cake for each 2 new buckets, and then throw the rest away. I like to see some airlock activity in about 24 hours, but not earlier then that. Now if I go higher on the gravity, I'll split the cake 1/2-and-1/2.