Reusing Yeast IPA to Pale Ale?

[baptistbrewer]

I have looked around this site a while and I want to resue the Wyeast American Ale that i would use for both my IPA and Pale ale, I brewed the IPA first, is the yeast stressed, the OG was 1.060.

I know that you are suppossed to go from less to more, but would it affect the little yeasties?

 

[Zen_Brew]

The odds are that the yeast will work fine, but perhaps not ideal. An OG of 1.060 is starting to get into the area where it will leave a bit of stress on the colony after fermentation. Also of concern is how high the IBU's were in your IPA. The same anti-bacterial qualities of hops that help them preserve against infection, also to a lesser extent affects the yeast. The hop oils basically coat the cell walls of the yeast and interfere with their reproduction cycle. While I don't think there is a hard and fast number where you can not re-use the yeast, the higher the OG of the previous batch, and the higher the IBU of the previous batch, the less ideal is the condition of the yeast after fermentation. It is generally recommended not to re-use yeast after an IPA.

 

[jar1087]

Bottom line, 98% chance you're fine to reuse the yeast as is. Maybe use 10-20% more slurry than you otherwise would and be sure to aerate well. 1.060 is just on the borderline of where yeast can get stressed, so I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you experienced a good clean, healthy fermentation in the IPA. Making a starter with some of the slurry would also help to rejuvenate the yeast if you are concerned and I don't know how true this is, but I have heard that washing the yeast can also help to improve their health. I have personally reused yeast from beers with an OG as high as 1.070 (IPA to IPA).

 

[Calder]

Just use it! It will be fine.

 

[baptistbrewer]

I put it into the secondary today, but the yeast looked iffy, so I just dumped it. I know it probably would have been ok, but decided not to.

Thanks for all the input.

 

[mattldm]

Every commercial brewery reuses their yeast, they harvest and repitch many times with no regard for the yeast being stressed out! I use harvested yeast from a local brewery for most of my brewing, never had a problem with stressed yeast.... in fact im not sure what stressed yeast is?

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

While Zen's theory about hop oils seems very likely, I agree with mattldm. Sometimes I think people don't give the yeast enough credit.

While I usually brew the pale ale first then pitch the IPA on the cake, I think what the OP is planning will be fine.