Pour on

[duskb]

I just pushed a high gravity double IPA into secondary tonight and I was planning on pouring my new recipe (porter) on top of the yeast cake after siphoning but I was not able to align my schedule to finish both beers on the same night.

The question is how risky is it to pour on top of a yeast cake that has been sitting at room temp for 12-24 hours versus doing it immediately? I tend to be religious about doing it right away so I am in uncharted territory now. I could wash but this will set me back a few days while I build up a starter (the new recipe calls for 3 vials of 001 which is what I effectively have sitting in my bucket right now).

Currently its sealed in a bucket waiting for the next batch. Not sure how long yeast can safely sit without beer on top.

 

[pitmaster666]

For that amount of time, your fine. I have waited longer than that and still had fine fermentation.

 

[GrogNerd]

not saying it won't work, just pointing out there may be issues with high gravity and high IBUs in your first batch having stressed the yeast

they're tired after chewing through all that sugar, then the properties of hops which made them so useful to brewers in the first place - as a natural antibacterial - is now working against you in the second batch

not sure where the cutoffs for ABV or IBUs are, but past a certain point, the yeast are just plain tuckered out

 

[LLBeanJ]

As far as the question you posed, the yeast sitting in the fermenter for a day or two at room temp will be fine. However, you state that the previous batch was a high gravity IIPA. Generally, when reusing yeast, you want to avoid yeast that have been stressed from a high gravity fermentation. You can certainly still use the yeast, but be aware you may encounter some off flavors . . . or you may not. It's a craps shoot, really. Ideally, you should plan your brews so that you do a lower/moderate gravity brew first, then follow it with a higher gravity brew. Also, you don't need to use the entire cake, as that would be an overpitch. Figure your slurry contains about 1 billion yeast cells per ml and use the correct amount as per one of the popular yeast calculators.