Some yeast slurry questions.

[chefchris]

After racking a robust porter off of the Nottingham cake I poured it into a jar and threw it in the fridge. I'm planning a big beer in the future and wanted to reuse this yeast. I was listening to the latest Sunday Session with the White Brothers and they say that if yeast has been sitting with the beer for a month then usually half of it is dead. Well, I made 10 gallons of this porter and still have yet to rack off the other 5 gallons from the cake.

#1 - Can/should I make a starter using the cake from both fermenters? (Which is a lot of slurry)

#2 - I know you're not suppose to make starters from dried yeast, but does that hold true if you're collecting slurry made from dried yeast?

#3 - Is it worth it since they're claiming half of it is dead? I guess if I use the cake from both fermenters and half of each is dead, then it will add up to one viable yeast cake. </dumb math>

This show was very interesting to listen to. The brothers said they don't like pitching straight on top of a yeast cake because of over pitching. I've done this and I know several others have as well without negative affects. Plus, when you look at the amount that a brewery pitches compared that on a homebrew level, it's exceedingly greater quanities. For the most part I've read that homebrewers generally under pitch.

I guess if pitching on top of the whole yeast cake is over pitching, you could split each cake in half and pitch those.

I have so much to learn.

 

[scinerd3000]

nottingham is cheap. personally i would just pitch packets because its not worth the hassel in my book. You also have to worry about carry over from the flavors. Inevitably your also going to get some trub from the previous beer in there. For $1.50 is it worth it? When i pitch slurry, i measure it in a flask and take around 500-700 ml of slurry depending on how big the beer im brewing is. Google mr malty's calculator and they will tell you how much to pitch.