Lager yeast cake

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mbreen01

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I've pitched onto an ale yeast cake with good results...but it seems like the bock I have brewing doesn't quite have as large amount of trub on the bottom of the carboy. Has anyone ever tried pitching another lager recipe over a lager cake? Any advice?

As an aside, it's a Wyeast 2206 Bavarian lager yeast...any suggestions for the next recipe to throw on top?

Marc.
 
I'm curious about this. Do you just pour your wort directly over used Yeast in the primary? Like siphon out one batch and then pour the next batch on the yeast cake?
 
ChillyP said:
I'm curious about this. Do you just pour your wort directly over used Yeast in the primary? Like siphon out one batch and then pour the next batch on the yeast cake?

That's how it's done, typically. Some people will tell you to actually get rid of some of the trub, because too much yeast can overheat you batch, and also because the period of yeast growth that typically happens produces particular desirable qualities in beer that you supposedly won't get if you already have enough yeast cells. But personally...I don't bother. I just rack directly onto the trub, as long as the prior beer wasn't some weird spicy thingamadealy.

I've never done it with a lager, though. I imagine it's the same idea...unless you let it lager at very low temps in your primary, which may have killed quite a few yeast cells.
 
You can do that.
But I would recommend that the yeast cake should not be older than 2 weeks. Most brewers leave their lagers in the primary for up to 4 weeks (I wouldn't do anyway). Just rack to a secondary after 1-2 weeks and let it finish there and rack the new wort on the yeast cake. This works best for high gravity lagers like Doppelbocks.

But even then I recommend harvesting the yeast and pitching at the proper pitching rate.
Kai
 
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