Why Not to Pitch On Your Yeast Cake

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Several is 5-7, I guess, so I'm curious how often and how long you been brewing to have made 500 batches of beer.
 
I stopped counting after 40 or so batches. I've been brewing for around 7 or 8 years and for many of those I brewed on average once/week, often two batches per brewday. I'd say I've brewed somewhere between 300 and 400 all grain batches.
 
My bad.....yeast cake is just a big starter, just too big.....reason for moving to mason jar is to reduce starter size.....
 
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as a relatively new brewer i have never repitched yeast- for me its just another variable that could go wrong so use fresh. however i am brewing a pale ale tomorrow and have no yeast. i do have another pale ale that i am about to rack so can re-use that yeast.

as this will be the first time i think its safer for me to just rack on the full yeast cake- the reason being i feel the bigger danger is me playing around with the yeast cake and making mistakes- causing an infection or something.

i guess i am looking for someone to say- yes go ahead- best bet for someone unsure in what they are doing!
 
as a relatively new brewer i have never repitched yeast- for me its just another variable that could go wrong so use fresh. however i am brewing a pale ale tomorrow and have no yeast. i do have another pale ale that i am about to rack so can re-use that yeast.

as this will be the first time i think its safer for me to just rack on the full yeast cake- the reason being i feel the bigger danger is me playing around with the yeast cake and making mistakes- causing an infection or something.

i guess i am looking for someone to say- yes go ahead- best bet for someone unsure in what they are doing!

Sure, go ahead....you'd do a bit better to only use part of it, but using it all isn't a significant mistake. I remember the first time I reused one...I was literally sweating as I put the beer on it! Now, it's standard practice for me to save a yeast slurry into a few containers for later reuse.
 
as a relatively new brewer i have never repitched yeast- for me its just another variable that could go wrong so use fresh. however i am brewing a pale ale tomorrow and have no yeast. i do have another pale ale that i am about to rack so can re-use that yeast.

as this will be the first time i think its safer for me to just rack on the full yeast cake- the reason being i feel the bigger danger is me playing around with the yeast cake and making mistakes- causing an infection or something.

i guess i am looking for someone to say- yes go ahead- best bet for someone unsure in what they are doing!

I think it depends on the yeast and style. Yeast make aromas and flavors while reproducing - with a giant yeast cake, there is no reproduction needed. So if it's a neutral ale yeast (US-05, WLP001, etc.), then sure. But if it's something more estery, then you might get less of it.

But I would probably swirl it up and pour some of it off at least (into a sanitized or sterilized jar to save). You can always throw away that jar of yeast later.
 
So if taking out a few pints of the yeast cake for later use, do you swirl it up in the fermenter first? I almost always dry hop so there's lots of leftovers in the cake, so repitching on top (if doing a similar style) is fine with me.

Just wondering if the swirling is necessary or will the slurry removed and the remainder in the fermenter be pretty much the same concentration of materials without swirling?
 
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