repitching Roeselare Blend

[sakariss]

Hello.

Have been having a flanders red, sitting on yeast for 4 months.
Recipe called for three months, but I've been too busy to brew. And I guess an extra month is always a good thing, when fermenting anything belgian.

I've read that the Roeselare Blend get's better (or more tart) after the first and second use. So I want to use the yeast cake (and pellicle) for my new batch. It's a lambic inspired brew, with lambic grist and very low IBU, where I want to keep a bit more starch in the wort.
My question about reusing the yeast is:
Should I just rack the new wort directly on the yeast cake (with half an inch of the old brew covering it) or should I rinse the yeast, as I've done with other cleaner types of beer. ?
I'm also wondering what to do with the pellicle. I want to keep it away from the bottling, But I'm not sure if I should keep it in the primary for my new batch. ?

I'm also thinking about moving my flanders red to a secondary and add some bottle dregs (girardin, boon and cantillon) Instead of bottling it But I'm not sure if they will have anything left to eat. I didn't want to add it to the primary, because I would like to keep the Roeselare "clean" for my next batch.

 

[specharka]

Four months is not very long for a Flanders red, but if you are looking to develop some complexity, racking it to secondary and pitching sour dregs isn't a bad option. If you reuse the yeast cake, just leave some beer where it is and pitch fresh wort on top of it, pellicle and all. It's also worth pitching extra Saccharomyces yeast to makeup for the loss to autolysis. Washing or rinsing sour blends is more difficult than pure Saccharomyces strains due to the mixed flocculation characteristics.