Re-pitch lager yeast

[stadtbrau]

I brewed a Munich Helles last thursday (8/25) with a very healthy and large starter of wyeast 2308. Plans for this holiday weekend have changed during the week and now I want to brew Monday. My beer has been fermenting at 50 F and I just checked in on it. Today is day 9 and the Krausen is still there but almost completely dropped. I checked gravity and I am at 1.014, (started at 1.050). So being within 2 points of terminal I went ahead a bumped it up to 60F in my fermentation chamber. I am hoping to brew a Dunkel or a Schwartzbier on Monday and would like to pitch a portion of this Helles yeast cake. I feel like I am rushing this a bit and worried I am not going to have a finished beer to rack off of its yeast by Monday afternoon to pitch into my next beer. My thought is to just go ahead and rack the beer and then use the cake for the new beer...then keep them both at 50 until the first one finishes, then start crashing it to laggering temps. This is assuming that the beer will not be finished in the next 2 days but I think it likely will be, just trying to get a plan b going.

So to sum up the question...will there be enough yeast in suspension on my helles if I rack it to get access to the yeast cake for the beer to finish if it has not finished by monday?

 

[stadtbrau]

I am also curious what everyone's process is in regards to racking beer for lagering. Are you racking at your D-rest temp and then crashing? Or are you crashing the get more to fall out before racking? Does your process change if your are planning to harvest or pitch cone to cone?

 

[RedlegEd]

I am also curious what everyone's process is in regards to racking beer for lagering. Are you racking at your D-rest temp and then crashing? Or are you crashing the get more to fall out before racking? Does your process change if your are planning to harvest or pitch cone to cone?

I've just done a few lagers, but my process is ferment (using STC1000+ and Brulospher's fast lager technique,) rise to D-rest for about 3 days, then crash to 34°F (fining with gelatin a/a 50°F.) I'll let it sit at 34 until I have a chance to keg (usually on a weekend,) then rack straight into the keg, where it'll carb and lager at the same time until I can't stand waiting any more.

With respect to your question about using the yeast cake, I think you'll still have plenty of yeast in suspension if you rack it off to finish lagering.

 

[stadtbrau]

Great... That is what I thought. Plans changed again and brew day got bumped back so I went ahead and just left it at 62 the last couple days. It was finished and the krausen had dropped when I got up today. I set it back down to 50 and now when I brew I will just rack that to secondary and my yeast will be ready to go at the right temp.

 

[mccabedoug]

I've just done a few lagers, but my process is ferment (using STC1000+ and Brulospher's fast lager technique,) rise to D-rest for about 3 days, then crash to 34°F (fining with gelatin a/a 50°F.) I'll let it sit at 34 until I have a chance to keg (usually on a weekend,) then rack straight into the keg, where it'll carb and lager at the same time until I can't stand waiting any more.



With respect to your question about using the yeast cake, I think you'll still have plenty of yeast in suspension if you rack it off to finish lagering.

That's my process too. Cold crash after D rest, keg, force carb, lager until I want to drink it......