Why Not to Pitch On Your Yeast Cake

[scottlindner]

I get you. I'll work on it. I can't promise I can be completely objective - no author really is - especially about something about which I feel so strongly. All I can promise is I'll try - I'll try not to be hurtfully dismissive of methods not mine.

Owzat?

That's why it helps to have others participate. You certainly can take the initial stab, but if you organize it based on each consideration and the arguments of each, you'll have a much easier time being objective.

Scott

 

[meddin]

Should we take a show of hands for those willing to participate in a rewrite of the original post of this thread to be used as a sticky? The information is good, but the post and follow up are not objective. I would recommend the post and title to be along the lines of "Things to consider before racking onto an active yeast cake" to ensure the focus is objective.

I am willing to contribute and have a few good ideas of how to keep it objective.

Cheers,
Scott

I'm all for anything that can get this useful information into a sticky to help the community.

Personally, I didn't see anything really wrong wth the OP. Bob is obviously passionate about this, and I actually find his writing style to be fun and quite entertaining , but it is obvious that the thread did end up devolving to the point that original message got lost in the fog.

I look forward to whatever changes the group comes up with!

Isn't it nice when we can all get along?

 

[scottlindner]

Personally, I didn't see anything really wrong wth the OP.

Isn't it obvious that there was? Not only did folks have different opinions than stated, those opinions themselves were rejected to the point that it is discouraging to think you can brew beer without going to the most sophisticated lengths. That needs to be resolved, so someone can read the information, and decide for themselves what works best for their objectives.

Bob's position makes me feel like that he wouldn't even try one of my beers if I had him over, and if he did try one, he would not be capable of calling it a beer. Maybe that is his intent? I highly doubt most people would object to drinking what I make and call beer, and most would even find it to be very good beer. So somewhere, there is a disconnect in the message. That's what I'm hoping we can resolve.

Scott

 

[Hermit]

I get you. I'll work on it. I can't promise I can be completely objective - no author really is - especially about something about which I feel so strongly. All I can promise is I'll try - I'll try not to be hurtfully dismissive of methods not mine.

Owzat?

As someone new to the brewing process I have tried pitching to the yeast cake once. I'd suggest that it might not be a bad idea for people to pitch the same recipe back to back using the existing cake. In my case I was left with no doubts there was a difference. Each person can then use what they learned to their own taste.

 

[meddin]

Isn't it obvious that there was?

While appreciate your position, and I certainly do not want to start any argument, I still stand by my above statement.

Perhaps it is the way I interpreted the OP. I guess I thought that it was written with a dramatic flair that made it more interesting fo me to read. I didn't take anything personally. I didn't feel insulted at all, and I know I practice bad brewing habits on a pretty regular basis.

When I first read the OP, I felt I came away with incresed knowledge about a particular part of the brewing process, and I had fun reading it too.

I like it when I am smiling when I read an HBT thread . I don't know Bob personally, but I get the vibe that he might even enjoy having one of my 'brewed incorrectly' beers. They taste good, but I know that they could be better.

That's my perspective on the matter anyway,

Cheers!

 

[scottlindner]

While appreciate your position, and I certainly do not want to start any argument, I still stand by my above statement.

Perhaps it is the way I interpreted the OP. I guess I though that it was written with a dramatic flair that made it more interesting fo me to read. I didn't take anything personally. I didn't feel insulted at all, and I know I practice bad brewing habits on a pretty regular basis.

When I first read the OP, I felt I came away with incresed knowledge about a particular part of the brewing process, and I had fun reading it too.

I like it when I am smiling when I read an HBT thread . I don't know Bob personally, but I get the vibe that he might even enjoy having one of my 'brewed incorrectly' beers. They taste good, but I know that they cold better.

That's my perspective on the matter anyway,

Cheers!

There is a tone and position in the original post. The take away is there is only one way to brew. I sure hope we all can agree there are many ways to brew awesome beer.

The facts in the original post are extremely useful. Especially in how they were collected and put together. What really set this off, is when a few stated there are other ways to brew, the general reception was "You're wrong". What does that message tell new brewers to the hobby? I started off extremely simple and was happy brewing that way for years. What would happen if the same position and tone were taken regarding all grain brewing? Or using glycol chillers rather than whatever is the warmest or coolest spot in the house? The very same quality control arguments can be made for those.

Scott

 

[meddin]

There is a tone and position in the original post. The take away is there is only one way to brew. I sure hope we all can agree there are many ways to brew awesome beer.

Scott

I do agree with you 100% that there are many ways to brew awesome beer. At least we have that common gound, right?

But I think even you would agree that some ways are 'more correct' than others. I'm sure that as you have progressed in your experience you do things differently now than you did when you brewerd your first 2.5 gal extract boil on the kitchen stove. Over time you used techniques that you found improved your beer.

That's precisely they way I took the OP. Bob presented us with well researched and well thought out information to help us improve the quality of our beer.

As for the tone, I thought it was fun-spirited. But that's the funny thing about written communication in places like internet forums. Tone is excedingly difficult to accurately determine. IMO, this is precisely why you and I dissagree on this.

Anywho, I hope that makes sense.

 

[Bob]

Bob's position makes me feel like that he wouldn't even try one of my beers if I had him over, and if he did try one, he would not be capable of calling it a beer. Maybe that is his intent? I highly doubt most people would object to drinking what I make and call beer, and most would even find it to be very good beer. So somewhere, there is a disconnect in the message. That's what I'm hoping we can resolve.

Scott,

I assure you, I am keen to try any and all beers I can get my lips around. Good beer is good beer, regardless of my crusade to get good practices into as many breweries as possible, or whether or not your method conforms to those practices. Good beer can be brewed by any number of methods.

I am very sorry indeed that the message got screwed up in the delivery. The message - not of the OP, necessarily, but of which the OP is a corollary - is simple: Consistent adherence to established procedures leads to the best possible beer more often than slap-dash procedures ever possibly can. I'm sure we can agree on that!

Passion often overrides reason. I am guilty of that, in this thread and elsewhere. It sucks when passion becomes the source of strife. I shall endeavor to correct that tendency in future.

What really set this off, is when a few stated there are other ways to brew, the general reception was "You're wrong".

That's where I (and presumably others) could possibly have been a bit more diplomatic. The trouble is, while there are other ways to brew, there really is only one set of procedures widely accepted as "proper". While it's arguably too black-and-white to baldly say, "You're wrong", it really is inarguable to say that industry-standard procedure can possibly be wrong. I suppose it's better to say, instead of a flat "UR DOIN IT RONG", that "while your procedure may work for you, the evidence says that it is inconsistent with standard practice."

In other words, yes there are many ways to brew. But there is really only one way to brew consistently excellent beer, one way which guides the brewer to excellence brew after brew after brew. It isn't religion, where nothing can be proved; it's where art meets science. Art creates the brew. Science lets you re-create that excellence time after time.

What does that message tell new brewers to the hobby?

One would hope it tells new brewers simply that "Here is the best way to be consistently successful." You're right, though, that smacking someone and yelling "UR DOIN IT RONG" is not the best way to bring folks round to your modus operandi.

I started off extremely simple and was happy brewing that way for years. What would happen if the same position and tone were taken regarding all grain brewing? Or using glycol chillers rather than whatever is the warmest or coolest spot in the house? The very same quality control arguments can be made for those.

Of course. However, it's not really a technical argument about technology; it's about basic brewing technique: Managing one of the four major constituents of beer with the same level of detail as you manage any other.

After all, glycol cooling is nothing more than a technology which makes controlling the ferment temperature less slap-dash than different locations.

See? We're getting somewhere! It's still pretty far removed from the OP, having devolved rather deeply into a discussion about the philosophy of brewing techniques.

As someone new to the brewing process I have tried pitching to the yeast cake once. I'd suggest that it might not be a bad idea for people to pitch the same recipe back to back using the existing cake. In my case I was left with no doubts there was a difference. Each person can then use what they learned to their own taste.

Well said!

That's why I really need to stop going on about philosophy and start rewriting the damn OP.

Bob

 

[scottlindner]

Bob,

It happens to the best of us. The only real crime here is that we can't get together to share beers while discussing it further.

Scott

 

[Bob]

Inorite? I get into discussion like this all the time, and I always forget that we're not sitting at a pub somewhere. If we were sitting around drinking beer, this never would have gotten out of hand.

Dammit.

See what happens when you do that?



Bob

 

[meddin]

Ok. NOW can we have our group hug?

 

[SkiSoloII]

If this is already in the lengthy tread, I apologize in advance, and someone please point me to the page....

I did a 12 gallon batch of English IPA. 2 fermenters - 1 with Safale S-05 (I know, it's American), and 1/2 with Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley. The Safale gave me a huge, campacted yeast cake I could scoop out with a steam shovel - I got large amounts of "slurry." The 1275 had a shallow cake, it was watery/runny - couldn't have been 1/4 the slurry of the S-05. I assume that the cell count would be lower with the 1275 due to the volume I had.

OG was 1.062, FG for both was 1.013.

I'd be willing to pitch on the 1275 yeast cake, but not on the S-05 due to this discussion. Does that make sense?

Dave

 

[Doc Robinson]

There you go, Shirley.

You rule Bob.

 

[Bob]

The Safale gave me a huge, campacted yeast cake I could scoop out with a steam shovel - I got large amounts of "slurry." The 1275 had a shallow cake, it was watery/runny - couldn't have been 1/4 the slurry of the S-05. I assume that the cell count would be lower with the 1275 due to the volume I had.

I'd be willing to pitch on the 1275 yeast cake, but not on the S-05 due to this discussion. Does that make sense?

There was some discussion about the relative physical characteristics of different strains. I pointed out exactly what you discovered: Different strains result in different slurries. In my experience, less-flocculent ("powdery") strains tend to collect in a much more runny slurry - like runny pancake batter - than more-flocculent strains - like pancake batter after a few seconds of cooking.

Assuming the cell count is lower because of consistency is unwise. Of course, the only way to really know a cell count or viability is through microscopy. But it's safe to operate under the assumption that both slurries contain a like amount of yeast.

If you notice, the more abundant slurry is also lighter and less dense than the runny slurry. This is one reason why the professional Rule of Thumb is to pitch by weight, not volume.

Make sense?

You rule Bob.

I want to use that as a userpic. Somewhere.

Bob

 

[Synovia]

Over-pitching is always detrimental to the beer. This does not say the beer will taste awful. Rest assured, however, that were one to place samples of the exact same beer - one fermented by overpitching and one by properly inoculating the wort - the properly pitched example will taste better. Blind taste tests prove it.

Please link to these tests. Citing books without giving specific page numbers is not enough.

 

[Denny]

I suppose it's better to say, instead of a flat "UR DOIN IT RONG", that "while your procedure may work for you, the evidence says that it is inconsistent with standard practice."

Ya know, I've tried to stay out of this after that first post I made, but I've gotta speak up now....what is the purpose of _any_ of the practices we use in brewing? It's to make good beer, right? So, if somebody can make good beer using practices that aren't "industry standard", what's more important? The practice or the outcome? I have a certain perspective on this after more than 10 years of championing batch sparging. When I first started speaking about I heard many arguments similar to this. "You can't do that". "It makes dirty beer". And my favorite, "If it's so good, why don't commercial breweries do it?". But as I and thousands of others have found, it DOES work and it DOES make great beer. And it does both of those despite the fact that it's not an "industry standard practice".

Now, before going further, let me state that I basically agree with Bob's original premise. Through my own testing and experimentation, I many years ago decided that I got better results by not using an entire slurry from a previous batch. After trying different approaches, I made up my own mind based on my own results, not what I had read or what other brewers , home or commercial, were doing. And AFAIAC, that's the way it should be for ANY methods we use in our home breweries. AFAIAC, every homebrewer who's passionate about the hobby owes it to him/herself to study and research any information on a topic that's available to them (such as Bob's OP), weight the facts presented, them try it and make up their own minds. Again, in spite of the fact that I basically agree with Bob's premise, I've just had too many good beers that have been pitched on a full slurry from too many people to blanket write off the practice.

Maybe it's time to keep the "Pragmatic Principle" in mind, along with its corollary...

Pragmatic
Make the best beer possible
While having the most fun possible
While doing the least work possible

Corollary
Do whatever it takes to make better beer
BUT
Make sure the effort you take yields results that are worth the effort!

 

[Beerrific]

Do whatever it takes to make better beer
BUT
Make sure the effort you take yields results that are worth the effort!

I agree with this 100%. But something that has to be kept in mind is that it easy to say "I am making great beer, so what I am doing must be right" and using this fact to stop yourself from doing relatively easy things to make even better beer.

At the same time, you should not blindly do things that are supposed to make your beer better without being objective about the results.

 

[Blanda]

Hi, I was not going to post because the OP was discouraging in this aspect. But is very sad to see how you confuse new and/or amateur brewers.
It's not a bad practice to pitch on your yeast cake, you can tell me there are better practices and I'll agree with you, but like any other practice if you do it well, you have great results.
I can´t give a science background on this, but I can tell you that I had a couple of my brews with some friends (2 of them are BJCP judges). And they were very pleased by the brew and even more surprised when they knew that the kölsch they enjoy that much was the third on a series of four batches on the same yeast. This third one, was a lot better than the first one.
It's true, I can´t tell you why. You don't accept the "it works for me". So I'll tell that in my experience it's a great practice with great results.

You have said "Brewers and brewing scientists far more experienced than either you or I disagree. Guess who I'm going to agree with?"

Well, if I intend to agree with them I wouldn't be doing my own brew!

Cheers.

PS: Sorry for my ****ty english, I'm from Argentina.

 

[RDWHAHB]

Bob-
While I don't argue your point, your at times your arguement kinda stinks of, "Standard practice is xxx because it is the best way to do it. It's the best way to do it because it's standard practice".

Cheers

 

[DKershner]

Ok. NOW can we have our group hug?

I have been waiting with my arms open since page 9. To be honest, it is starting to feel a little awkward.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuug!!!!

 

[olllllo]

stinks of

There's probably a better way to say that, or do you want the argumentative portion of the thread to continue?

 

[geoffny25]

So I realize that this is pitching on a yeast cake, and pardon me if this has been asked, but can the negative effects you listed occur when using a dry yeast packet?

For example, I brewed a 3 gallon porter, at 1.06, the yeast calculators come out to using 6/10 of a 11.5 g packet. If you pitch the full 11.5 g, will it lead to effects you have discussed?

 

[mojotele]

So I realize that this is pitching on a yeast cake, and pardon me if this has been asked, but can the negative effects you listed occur when using a dry yeast packet?

For example, I brewed a 3 gallon porter, at 1.06, the yeast calculators come out to using 6/10 of a 11.5 g packet. If you pitch the full 11.5 g, will it lead to effects you have discussed?

My educated guess is that any negative effects wouldn't be noticeable.

You know how much you pitched, though. If you ever try the beer again, you can pitch the suggested amount and see if there is a difference yourself! That's what this thread was supposed to be about.

 

[dstar26t]

Bob, thanks for taking the time to write all this information down for us. I have a question...

Fix tells us that, on average, a harvested slurry contains 25% yeast solids and 75% non-yeast solids.

Why does JZ's calculator for "Repitching from Slurry" have a slider that goes from 0-25% for "Non-Yeast Percentage"? According to the Fix quote, it should read "Yeast Solids", right?

 

[remilard]

Bob, thanks for taking the time to write all this information down for us. I have a question...



Why does JZ's calculator for "Repitching from Slurry" have a slider that goes from 0-25% for "Non-Yeast Percentage"? According to the Fix quote, it should read "Yeast Solids", right?

Fix was assuming that hot break and hops never went in the fermenter, and was probably also coming from a commercial perspective where cold break is dumped out the bottom of a conical.

Jamil's calculator lets you adjust for the fact that a lot of homebrewers have much more non yeast material than a commercial slurry or George Fix's home slurry.

 

[dstar26t]

Fix was assuming that hot break and hops never went in the fermenter, and was probably also coming from a commercial perspective where cold break is dumped out the bottom of a conical.

Jamil's calculator lets you adjust for the fact that a lot of homebrewers have much more non yeast material than a commercial slurry or George Fix's home slurry.

I don't think I was clear...Fix is saying 25% yeast and JZ lets you choose 75-100% yeast because the description above the 0-25 slider is "Non-Yeast Percentage". These seem very different.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

Fix was assuming that hot break and hops never went in the fermenter, and was probably also coming from a commercial perspective where cold break is dumped out the bottom of a conical.

Jamil's calculator lets you adjust for the fact that a lot of homebrewers have much more non yeast material than a commercial slurry or George Fix's home slurry.

It looks like it's just opposite of that though. The OP says that Fix claims ~75% non-yeast solids and the Mr Malty PRC has 25% as the MAX amount of non-yeast solids.

Dstar,
I was also kind of struggling to combine the things said in the OP with the PRC. The OP says that if you have some settled yeast from a previous fermentation that a good approximation is that you have 1 billion viable yeast cells per mL. But when you go to the Mr Malty PRC the 'Yeast Concentation' slider goes from 1 billion/mL MINIMUM up to 4.5 billion/mL and the 'Non-yeast percentage' goes from 0% to 25% MAXIMUM. Then you have to adjust the 'viability'. So there's several things to adjust and we're just guessing at all of them. But the 1 billion/mL was sort of a 'hard number' from the OP so in order to make it more simple I just put the 'Yeast Concentration' at 1 billion/mL and the 'Non-yeast percentage' to 0%, and then adjust the viability based on how old it is. I actually did two brews this past weekend doing this, in both cases (1 ale, 1 lager) it was more yeast slurry than I had been calculating in the past (almost double).

 

[dstar26t]

For JZ's PRC using the slurry tab, keep all the sliders at the default. He says on average, it describes non-washed harvested yeast that has sit in the fridge for 1 week, the settled portion.

If you don't have enough slurry, there is a process in the calculator to figure out the starter size needed from the slurry you have:
Lets say you have 200 mL of slurry that is a week old.
According to his PRC, one week old is 83% viable so you effectively have 166 mL of slurry (.83*200).
Multiply that by the default yeast concentration of 2.4 billion/mL and you have 398 billion cells (166*2.4).
Take that number over to the Liquid Yeast tab. Each tube of white labs yeast has an average of 100 billion cells when it is 100% viable. That relationship makes it easy because you can take the number of viable cells in your slurry (398 billion) and pretend it's a super viable tube of white labs yeast. Uncheck the "Calculate Viability from Date" box and type in 398 for your viability. Enter the other parameters for your beer and it gives you the starter size you need to pitch your 200 mL of slurry into.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

For JZ's PRC using the slurry tab, keep all the sliders at the default. He says on average, it describes non-washed harvested yeast that has sit in the fridge for 1 week, the settled portion.

Then that would be 2.4 billion/mL and 10% non-yeast solids. That still looks like it's different than the 1 billion/mL that the OP mentioned (about double). That's prob why I ended up pitching about double the yeast (going from the OP's number) than I usually do when using the PRC.

If you don't have enough slurry, there is a process in the calculator to figure out the starter size needed from the slurry you have:
Lets say you have 200 mL of slurry that is a week old.
According to his PRC, one week old is 83% viable so you effectively have 166 mL of slurry (.83*200).
Multiply that by the default yeast concentration of 2.4 billion/mL and you have 398 billion cells (166*2.4).
Take that number over to the Liquid Yeast tab. Each tube of white labs yeast has an average of 100 billion cells when it is 100% viable. That relationship makes it easy because you can take the number of viable cells in your slurry (398 billion) and pretend it's a super viable tube of white labs yeast. Uncheck the "Calculate Viability from Date" box and type in 398 for your viability. Enter the other parameters for your beer and it gives you the starter size you need to pitch your 200 mL of slurry into.

Hey, I thought that 'use the percent viability slider to dictate your starting yeast count' was my idea! Been doing that for a while now.

TBH, the most difficult thing for me to nail down is: If I have a known volume of settled yeast, what cell count am I starting with? I've asked this question and seen other's ask it and if you get answers they are all over the place. Since the OP has had it tested and they averaged 1 billion/mL it seems easiest to just set the slider to 1 billion/mL and put the non-yeast at 0%. My yeast is always washed so I thought it would be similar to that which is pulled from the cone. Still, the dilemma for me is that I can't get the PRC and the OP's numbers to agree. Seems like they differ by almost a factor of 2.