I've never tried this before, but I wanted to bottle quickly and brew another 5 gallon batch of extract brew in the same day not only to save time but to keep the pipeline full. I developed a Red Ale recipe that I could pitch onto the existing yeast cake from my English Mild. This procedure was really simple and the amount of time it took to brew + bottle was pretty much the same as it takes me to brew. I've never pitched on a yeast cake before, but based on what I've learned here, its a good idea to affix a blow off tube due to the number of yeast cells in the cake that can cause very quick and explosive fermentation.
I had a yeast cake from my English Mild that I could use for this which used Nottingham yeast (I know, its cheap and I could have just purchased another sachet, but this was a time saver due to the fact that I didn't have to sanitize my fermenter and ultimately saved me $1.50 by pitching on the yeast cake).
I found that the time savings comes on the sanitation side, because I spend so much time sanitizing for bottling and brewing, that when combined, this works very well and creates efficiency. I loaded my rinsed bottles and loaded them into the dishwasher in order to sanitize them before I left for work in the morning. Then, when I got home, I put water on the stove for the boil, and a separate pot for the corn sugar needed for bottling. After the water got to heat, I started steeping my grains, and was able to sanitize my equipment, drain, rinse and prep my bottling area while the grains were steeping. I siphoned to the bottling bucket and covered both the fermenter and the bottling bucket with aluminum foil. Then I added the extract and hops, and once the hot break calmed down I started to bottle and finished capping before the wort had to be chilled. I cleaned up the bottling equipment, chilled the wort, pitched onto the yeast cake and airated for a couple minutes with a wire whisk. Its only four hours after I finished brewing and my blow-off tube is bubbling away.
If you're thinking of saving some time, this is an excellent way to double duty brewing and bottling.
I had a yeast cake from my English Mild that I could use for this which used Nottingham yeast (I know, its cheap and I could have just purchased another sachet, but this was a time saver due to the fact that I didn't have to sanitize my fermenter and ultimately saved me $1.50 by pitching on the yeast cake).
I found that the time savings comes on the sanitation side, because I spend so much time sanitizing for bottling and brewing, that when combined, this works very well and creates efficiency. I loaded my rinsed bottles and loaded them into the dishwasher in order to sanitize them before I left for work in the morning. Then, when I got home, I put water on the stove for the boil, and a separate pot for the corn sugar needed for bottling. After the water got to heat, I started steeping my grains, and was able to sanitize my equipment, drain, rinse and prep my bottling area while the grains were steeping. I siphoned to the bottling bucket and covered both the fermenter and the bottling bucket with aluminum foil. Then I added the extract and hops, and once the hot break calmed down I started to bottle and finished capping before the wort had to be chilled. I cleaned up the bottling equipment, chilled the wort, pitched onto the yeast cake and airated for a couple minutes with a wire whisk. Its only four hours after I finished brewing and my blow-off tube is bubbling away.
If you're thinking of saving some time, this is an excellent way to double duty brewing and bottling.
