New must on old yeast cake

[JohanTheMighty]

Good evening. I recently made a two gallon batch of a mixed berry mead with an habanero to add a bit of a kick. After 1 week in primary, the bit of a kick is more like a stomp to the face, lol. I know better than to bottle and hope it mellows, it will probably get hotter.

So, I intend to make another 2 gallon batch without the pepper to add to the overly batch. I'm thinking that rather than use a new yeast packet, I can just pour onto the yeast that remains after I move the mead to another container to clear.

Alternatively, I was thinking that I can make my new must, stir up the mead, and use a sanitized glass measuring cup to scoop 4 cups of yeasty mead and add it to the new must. I do worry if there would be enough yeast in that 4 cups of stirred up mead though.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thank you for time and insights.

 

[CKuhns]

There would be some yeast in the stirred up must. However, not sure how much, it may cause a lag in your fermrent and or stress the yeast a bit.

With that said i would think it would work but never tried it myself. I have started a few ciders and meads on the yeast from a previous ferment and it worked well.

Alternately you could "wash" the yeast out of your last ferment and have a pretty large colony of viable healthy yeast to work with. (Search washing yeast from a prior ferment.) Its pretty easy and works well. I have done this and very happy with the results.

All that is fine and good but with dry yeast being 2 to 3 dollars a pack. I just keep some on hand.

 

[pdhirsch]

What @CKuhns said... if it were me I'd just pitch a new packet of yeast, but if you're going to use the old yeast, then you should rinse or wash it. That will remove most of the non-yeast crud from the cake, which may be particularly important in your case.
There's no good reason not to use the old yeast if you're curious about it... I think many of us have done it once or twice just to see how it turns out, and some people do it all the time.

 

[JohanTheMighty]

Thanks for the responses. I am definitely not buying more yeast. I get where you're going about yeast not costing much and such, but it's only cheap if you buy several packs at once and the batch was supposed to be my last for this year.

The batch I am making to dilute the effect of the habanero also seems ideal for reusing the old yeast... the point being both batches are as similar as possible, less the habanero.

I appreciate the suggestion of yeast washing. I am going to see how easy that is, and if it is, I will definitely wash the yeast prior to reusing it.

 

[JohanTheMighty]

Great suggestion, y'all! Washing yeast is cake. Much appreciated!

 

[Ty520]

The biggest caveat about re using yeast is that it can mutate, and change flavor and aroma profiles and alcohol tolerance

Probably not an issue of it's only going to be once or twice, but if you're thinking of maintaining a starter culture permanently

 

[JohanTheMighty]

Thanks. I only intended to reuse once, and that is all.

I've tasted the new mead that I am mixing with the mead, and it's good. I thiefed some of each and mixed and it looks like I am going to end up with something much more palatable, quite good actually. The heat is such that you know it's there, and the gravity at this time is 1.010, which is sweet enough to balance it, for me anyway. I'm pretty sure I am going to be quite pleased with it when all is said and done.