Cider on top of yeast cake?

[sdenue57]

I'm getting ready to bottle a DIPA I brewed today. I've wanted to try making a cider. My question is, would it be alright to just pour 5 gallons of cider, and a little bit of table sugar, right on top of the yeast cake? I used a mix of Conan and Nottingham on the brew, so I'm thinking it probably will finish a bit sweet, which is Ok with me. Any advice is appreciated, as this is my first attempt at a cider.

 

[seabrew8]

Do you have any yeast debris/ring aound the top of the fermenter?

 

[sdenue57]

Some. Is that a problem?

 

[seabrew8]

I have no idea! I hijacked your thread, i was hoping someone would answer both our questions. I never put anything on a yeast cake before.

 

[Yooper]

I would NOT reuse a yeast cake that had a beer on it with over 6% ABV. If you made a DIPA, the yeast will be pretty stressed due to the high alcohol level.

Generally, you could reuse some yeast for cider (not a whole cake, that's WAY too much), but you want to go from a lower ABV to higher, not in reverse.

 

[sdenue57]

I may have played a little loosely with the DIPA term. It turned out at 7% ABV, so not really a double. I'm probably just gonna scoop some of the yeast out and add it to some jars of harvested yeast I had in the fridge. Worse comes to worse, I can run to the LHBS and get some. Thanks for the replies!

 

[JimRausch]

I might be a little concerned that reusing yeast from an IPA might have a lot of hop flavor/bitterness left in the trub. I have no personal experience that is the case, just throwing the thought out there.
I did reuse yeast from my DoubleAlt in the Graf that is currently fermenting, so I might be a hypocrite...........

 

[sdenue57]

Not too worried about a little hoppiness to it. Poured the apple cider into a different fermenter, scooped 3 soup ladles of the yeast cake into it, and then pitched the 2 jars of harvested Conan into it. Bubbling away nicely this morning!

 

[ngbacon]

I recently brewed a Saison and decided to do a cider right over the top of the yeast cake after racking the beer to a secondary. I used about 4-5 gallons of store bought Apple juice and 4 packages of frozen Apple juice concentrate. Its been fermenting quite aggressively at somewhere around 62 degrees for almost a week. I took a small sample today and there was a pronounced unpleasant bitterness. I'm assuming this is definitely from the hops left over in the cake from the beer. I'm thinking this may mellow out over time. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Yooper]

I recently brewed a Saison and decided to do a cider right over the top of the yeast cake after racking the beer to a secondary. I used about 4-5 gallons of store bought Apple juice and 4 packages of frozen Apple juice concentrate. Its been fermenting quite aggressively at somewhere around 62 degrees for almost a week. I took a small sample today and there was a pronounced unpleasant bitterness. I'm assuming this is definitely from the hops left over in the cake from the beer. I'm thinking this may mellow out over time. Anyone have any experience with this?

It could be stressed yeast or something and not hop bitterness, as there aren't a lot of bittering hops in a saison.