Dumpin' on a Cake

[justinakajuice]

1. When reusing a yeast cake, is it better to use the primary cake with or if transferred to a secondary, the secondary?

2. How many times can/should this be done before using a new batch of yeast?

3. Is an Irish Red that uses the same yeast(Nottingham dry) as a Nut Brown Ale safe from catching the NB's flavor when dumped on the cake?

4. Does using this method affect washing the yeast after the second batch?

 

[RICLARK]

1. When reusing a yeast cake, is it better to use the primary cake with or if transferred to a secondary, the secondary?

2. How many times can/should this be done before using a new batch of yeast?

3. Is an Irish Red that uses the same yeast(Nottingham dry) as a Nut Brown Ale safe from catching the NB's flavor when dumped on the cake?

4. Does using this method affect washing the yeast after the second batch?

1) Primary
2) Usually 2-3 times the yeast gets pooped out.
3) It will pick up flavor from the other beer.
4) I would wash after the first batch the yeast wont be as worn out.

 

[AnOldUR]

This might be good practice for later, but at $1.45 a pack it doesn't seem worth even a small risk. With liquid yeast, starters and harvesting are necessary, but dry yeast just gets re-hydrated and pitched. One 11g pack is all you need for a 1.048 batch. It would take two packs of liquid yeast at about six dollars a pack if you didn't use a starter or old slurry.

 

[sahuaro]

just curious, i'm currently brewing my second batch and i used dry yeast for first batch(nut brown) and did not rehydrate (still not exactly sure wut this entails). everything seems to be going fine. i'm using dry yeast again for my wheat beer (S-O5). do i need to rehydrate and if so what is the simplest way? thanks.

 

[justinakajuice]

No, you don't have to rehydrate if you don't want to, I didn't for this batch. All you do if you were to rehydrate would be to put it in some warm water, about 90 F. Then you add it to the wort once you have cooled it down to 75ish and you're good.

 

[AnOldUR]

. . . do i need to rehydrate and if so what is the simplest way? thanks.

Don't have to but to get the best cell count you should.

Sprinkle the yeast on the surface of 10 times its weight of clean, sterilized (boiled) water at 30–35°C.
Do not use wort, or distilled or reverse osmosis water, as loss in viability will result. DO NOT STIR.
Leave undisturbed for 15 minutes, then stir to suspend yeast completely, and leave it for 5 more
minutes at 30–35°C. Then adjust temperature to that of the wort and inoculate without delay.​

Edit:
It's easier than it sounds and worth doing.