Start new cider on yeast cake from prevous???

[KaiB]

I will be transferring 7 gal from primary (after one month) to secondary.

Is there any reason I can't just immediately dump a fresh 7 gal juice and my other stuff (tannins, pectinase, acid and DAP) into the fermenter?

Do I have too much yeast in the cake?
Do I need to worry about sanitation?
What else don't I know?

Cheers and thanks...plan to do this this weekend if it meets your approval.

 

[KaiB]

Interested in response, however I have decided to take the fifteen minutes required to clean and sterilize.

My current batches are coming along wonderfully and temperatures are perfect in the back room. I just don't want to deviate from anything.

 

[ebbelwoi]

I've done it before, with 5-liter batches and ale yeasts. I didn't add any additional nutrients, and I soon discovered that I definitely didn't need to. The second batch fermented much more vigorously than the first, to the point that it was blowing out the airlock.

I still reuse yeast, but have a different method now. I leave a little cider left in the fermenter after racking, then swish it around until the yeast goes back into suspension. Then I use half of that yeast for the next batch, in a different fermenter. Seems to work well for my purposes.

 

[KaiB]

The above sounds like a good idea as it would help overpitching. Thanks.

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

I often reuse some of the yeast cake for the next batch. Never had a problem.

 

[MarkKF]

I’ve done it with a spontaneous wild ferment. Just dumped another gal. on the lees.

 

[madscientist451]

You can just dump the next batch of apple juice right in, I've been doing it that way for years without any problems.
I usually do clean the fermenter after the second use, but you could probably get away with stretching that.

 

[NeverDie]

If I'm not mistaken, this is more or less the same as the protocol for propagating yeast in staggered starters, except there you may end up pouring the yeast cake slurry into a larger volume (typically 10x) of must if need be at each new stage. I've just recently started doing staggered starters, so I've been reading up on it. About the only difference is the progressively larger volumes and a 1.036 OG at each stage. So far, so good.

 

[TwistedGray]

How many times have you guys pitched on the same cake? I am curious if I can do a third run on the same cake or not...

 

[NeverDie]

How many times have you guys pitched on the same cake? I am curious if I can do a third run on the same cake or not...

From what I've been reading, you can probably get 5 or 6 iterations this way, provided your sanitary conditions are good enough. However, I'll defer to the experience of others here as to how well that works out for a home brewer.

 

[TwistedGray]

From what I've been reading, you can probably get 5 or 6 iterations this way, provided your sanitary conditions are good enough. However, I'll defer to the experience of others here as to how it happens for a home brewer.

I wonder why you need to sanitize between uses? I guess because you are introducing airborne particles when you pour in the next batch of juice?

 

[NeverDie]

I wonder why you need to sanitize between uses? I guess because you are introducing airborne particles when you pour in the next batch of juice?

Sanitize what? The fermentation vessel? I don't believe you need to. But all this does assume your next batch of juice is pasteurized, of course, and you don't introduce anything living when you dump it in. At least, that's my understanding of how it's supposed to be done for staggered starters.

 

[TwistedGray]

Sanitize what? The fermentation vessel? I don't believe you need to. But all this does assume your next batch of juice is pasteurized, of course, and you don't introduce anything living when you dump it in. At least, that's my understanding of how it's supposed to be done for staggered starters.

Noted, I just misunderstood "provided your sanitary conditions are good enough" ... I think you meant "were" instead of "are" then? I was a little confused. I've never re-sanitized a vessel that had a cake in it.

 

[NeverDie]

Noted, I just misunderstood "provided your sanitary conditions are good enough" ... I think you meant "were" instead of "are" then? I was a little confused. I've never re-sanitized a vessel that had a cake in it.

I just mean that at every stage, you need to do whatever you can to avoid introducing any other organisms into your must, because if it turns out that they're more aggressive, they will with each iteration become a bigger problem. If it's a more aggressive yeast, then you need to start over. If it's a bacteria, then maybe you can do a yeast washing to minimize it. At least that's the theory, as I understand it anway. Like I say, I defer to those with more experience at doing this in a typical homebrewing environment. I've begun doing this to propagate yeast using staggered starters, and so far so good, but I wouldn't claim to be an expert.

It's been said that the yeast produced in the third iteration is actually better than the yeast that comes out of the package from the yeast vendor and supposedly produces the best beverage. Apparently the yeast get more and more adapted to the qualities of the must that you keep putting in, provided that it's the same must recipe each time.

 

[TwistedGray]

I just mean that at every stage, you need to do whatever you can to avoid introducing any other organisms into your must, because if it turns out that they're more aggressive, they will with each iteration become a bigger problem. If it's a more aggressive yeast, then you need to start over. If it's a bacteria, then maybe you can do a yeast washing to minimize it. At least that's the theory, as I understand it anway. Like I say, I defer to those with more experience at doing this in a typical homebrewing environment. I've begun doing this to propagate yeast using staggered starters, and so far so good, but I wouldn't claim to be an expert.

It's been said that the yeast produced in the third iteration is actually better than the yeast that comes out of the package from the yeast vendor. Apparently the yeast get more and more adapted to the qualities of the must that you keep putting in, provided that it's the same must recipe each time.

Lol, which is partially my issue. I like to toss cider on different yeast cakes. I have one on a cider cake but another batch on a stout cake.

 

[Justwingnit]

If you are pushing the ABV you could have stressed yeast and I have read that is not good. What I've been doing is I made a starter and doubled the volume of yeast and pitched 1/2 that into my cider and store second 1/2 a few weeks then I make a starter from what I stored and repeat.
When I move to secondary I have a separating method using a 2 liter bottle and a ice cold storage box.