Yeast cake...what to do with it?

[rjsharp]

I just completed my first brew, a new castle brown ale clone. It turned out really good and we just dumped the yeast cake. We have a kolsch that's almost ready and a stout that we just cooked. What can we do with the yeast cake? I've heard all kinds of things. Just trying to get some ideas

 

[postal_penguin]

You could pitch another beer on top of it or compost it.

 

[rjsharp]

You could pitch another beer on top of it or compost it.

I've heard of pitching another beer on it. Am I still required to buy a little bit of yeast to go along with it? And if so, does it need to be the same exact strand or just somewhat similar? I've also heard you can use the yeast cake to make dough. Is that true? Or just some bull**** story someone came up with to make me look like a jackass?

 

[carltjones]

Most would just pitch the wort right on top w/o new yeast. You may also wash the yeast and fridge for a month or two (I use a capped bottle). Never made a dough of it but it may work if you're a baker.

 

[rjsharp]

Most would just pitch the wort right on top w/o new yeast. You may also wash the yeast and fridge for a month or two (I use a capped bottle). Never made a dough of it but it may work if you're a baker.

You say to wash the yeast before fridging it. How do you do that without losing half your yeast? And if you do that, can you use the yeast from a stout for an ale? I probably sound kinda dumb for asking all these questions, but I don't really want to waste $40 on ingredients just to ruin the beer with a yeast that won't work. Like I said, all tips are welcome.

 

[carltjones]

Rack the final beer to 2ndary, keg or bottle bucket. Add about a quart of tap water to the yeast cake and stir. After fifteen minutes funnel into 3+ sanitized beer bottles, cap and label. On next brew day I crack cap when starting mash and just dump in wort after cooldown. Worked for me a 20/20. Others may say you need more complication or safety measure and that is fine.

 

[rjsharp]

Rack the final beer to 2ndary, keg or bottle bucket. Add about a quart of tap water to the yeast cake and stir. After fifteen minutes funnel into 3+ sanitized beer bottles, cap and label. On next brew day I crack cap when starting mash and just dump in wort after cooldown. Worked for me a 20/20. Others may say you need more complication or safety measure and that is fine.

Awesome! Thanks for the tip I'll definitely give that a try

 

[QueenCityALER]

I agree with Mr. Penguin and put another beer on it. Try to do one that is somewhat close to the SRM of the previous beer. And no, you shall not need to add any more yeast. That slurry is packed with healthy yeast. I often time out my brew and rack time so that I can utilize the yeast as it is plentiful and cost effective, as those lil' vials and starters, etc can get pricey. So use what ya got! Also, putting the beer down on the cake will be beneficial as the yeast count is high, as a lot of home brewers under pitch anyway. If needs be I'll back that up with an easy equation and table of Different possible sources. My source on this is in Ray Daniels book "Designing Great Beers". This text is worth EVERY penny spent on it in my opinion. Good luck and happy brewing.

 

[QueenCityALER]

OK---off topic! Hey Postal Penguin, would you mind sharing the recipe for that Bourbon Vanilla Porter? You can pm me or post off topic here, but that sounds great and something I may like to try.

 

[looneybomber]

So pour directly onto the yeast cake that's settled on the bottom? No washing? Just dump it right on the yeast cake, trub and all?

The reason I ask is I'd like to use a trappist yeast for my tripel and also my RIS and if I can dump the high gravity RIS right into the fermenter after racking, that would save some time and money. It'd also give me a hell of a starter. The trub won't give me any off flavors? Will the yeast be upset if sitting on a ~1.017FG and having a ~1.105OG dumped on it?

 

[buffalobrewer]

when you pitch onto a yeast cake definitely use a blow off tube. The yeast are really frisky and will create quite the krausen.

 

[JonGrafto]

Rack the final beer to 2ndary, keg or bottle bucket. Add about a quart of tap water to the yeast cake and stir. After fifteen minutes funnel into 3+ sanitized beer bottles, cap and label. On next brew day I crack cap when starting mash and just dump in wort after cooldown. Worked for me a 20/20. Others may say you need more complication or safety measure and that is fine.

Do you store it on the fridge or just room temp???

 

[bassbone]

Keep in mind that if you just pitch the beer onto a yeast cake without washing or removing some of it, you are dramatically over pitching yeast. Essentially that is using your first batch of beer as a 5 gallon starter for your second beer. Play around with www.mrmalty.com's yeast calculator.... it will never tell you to make a starter that big. For example, I am about to brew 10 gallons of beer at 1.080 and that will only take about 2 gallons of starter.

Here is a thread that talks about yeast washing: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/

Also, it is a good idea to pay attention to the alcohol content and IBU's before washing and re-pitching. A high abv beer stresses the yeast A LOT, and will cause some mutations if you try to reuse the yeast. High IBU beers can also mess with the yeast. B/c of this, my general rule is I throw out the yeast: (1) once the yeast is used in a beer that is higher than 45 IBU's, (2) used in a beer higher than 1.070 SG or (3) used for 4 batches.

just my $.02

 

[carltjones]

Do you store it on the fridge or just room temp???

Keep harvested yeast in the fridge until early on brew day to bring up to room temp. A 3 month old, washed Irish ale yeast started right up for me last batch. The LHBS keeps "reminding" me to buy yeast because it has to be their biggest markup.

Brassbone's link above was helpful when I started. Cheers.

 

[likafox]

I would bet it would make a good fertilizer, mixed with your spent grains and maybe some leaves from the yard. Then you can use it as fertilizer in your hops garden

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Since I do many partial boils on the stovetop, I've been washing and immediately re-using my yeast. I rack my beer off the cake, pour in one gallon of store-bought bottled water, stir it all up, put the lid back on, and wait about 40 minutes. Then I pour the liquid back into the 1-gallon container and put it into the fridge. Then, after I have cleaned the fermenter and added my fresh wort and the rest of the make-up water, I check the temperature to make sure that it is cool enough (it usually is nearly room temperature), then I decant the 1-gallon of yeast liquid as my final gallon of make-up.

It's easy as I don't really have to do much extra except decant the suspended yeast. The bottled water is sanitary and so there isn't much additional risk of contamination (if your original batch is contaminated then you're screwed no matter how you reuse the yeast). I'm sure I am still overpitching yeast a bit, but not so much as as reusing the entire cake. The ferments start within a few hours and finish nicely; vigorous, but no beer-canos. I generally brew lower gravity beers so if they finish a little drier than they should, that's a win in my book.

My cellar is getting a bit too warm for ales now and I don't bother with refrigerating, so I am going to bottle my last beers for the summer (5 gallons of Centennial Blonde and 5 gallons of Deception Stout), compost my yeast cakes and focus on my wines and mead until the fall. My beer pipeline is well established and I should be replete with beer well into fall, when I will be able to start brewing ales again. My stout should be fabulous in December.

 

[billpaustin]

I'm gonna try pouring apple juice onto the yeast cake. 5 gal of Wit beer ready to keg, and I'll just dump 2 gal of apple juice on top of the yeast and stand back

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

I'm gonna try pouring apple juice onto the yeast cake. 5 gal of Wit beer ready to keg, and I'll just dump 2 gal of apple juice on top of the yeast and stand back

2 gallons of AJ and 1 lb of honey or about 1/2 lb of corn sugar will get you headed toward Apfelwein land. Just saying

 

[billpaustin]

2 gallons of AJ and 1 lb of honey or about 1/2 lb of corn sugar will get you headed toward Apfelwein land. Just saying

Too late for this batch. I added the 2 gal of apple juice to the yeast cake, and within 4 hours it is bubbling like no tomorrow!

edit: not too late I went and added 16oz of locally made honey to the batch. It's only been fermenting a few hours, so hopefully this will work.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Too late for this batch. I added the 2 gal of apple juice to the yeast cake, and within 4 hours it is bubbling like no tomorrow!

edit: not too late I went and added 16oz of locally made honey to the batch. It's only been fermenting a few hours, so hopefully this will work.

It will work just fine. Park that fermenter somewhere for a month or so, and enjoy.

 

[billpaustin]

It will work just fine. Park that fermenter somewhere for a month or so, and enjoy.

Not sure about the temp for this kind of thing. Other fermenters (all glass carboys) stay about 72 degrees in my house (live in the mountains, have no A/C). So low to mid-70's is what this will probably be.

Just checked, around 78, too hot I figure. Put on the wet-tshirt, which works really well here. 8,000 ft altitude, 10% humidity.

The 2 gal of apple juice, and 16oz of honey, on a full 5 gal batch wheat beer yeast cake is fantastically active. In a 6.5 gal carboy, I don't think the krausen will get there, but it is bubbling almost continuously. If it keeps this up, I may rig up a blow-off tube for overnight.

edit: (beginner) I guess this means I WAY overpitched. What are the drawbacks to this?

 

[WiseEyes]

overpitching= off flavors, but not as bad as underpitching-imho

 

[Mozart]

New brewer here, but thus far I've simply dumped my yeast cake -- usually someplace inconspicuous in the garden as I hear it makes good fertilizer.

When I bottle my next hefe, though, I am considering simply pouring about 5 gallons of apple juice (pasteurized, no preservatives) atop my yeast cake and making my first cider. Total and complete experiment, but I am wondering what a dry cider might taste like with the clove and banana notes from a hefeweizen yeast.

Cheers!

 

[billpaustin]

New brewer here, but thus far I've simply dumped my yeast cake -- usually someplace inconspicuous in the garden as I hear it makes good fertilizer.

When I bottle my next hefe, though, I am considering simply pouring about 5 gallons of apple juice (pasteurized, no preservatives) atop my yeast cake and making my first cider. Total and complete experiment, but I am wondering what a dry cider might taste like with the clove and banana notes from a hefeweizen yeast.

Cheers!

This is what I did, except I used 2 gal of apple juice. Be prepared for an explosion!

 

[likafox]

I saw a couple people mentioned dumping apple juice/cider on the yeast cake, so I just did that last night. It was a lite brown ale with blueberries and blackberries. I oxegenated the crap out of it btw. Its literally churning now. Awesome.

 

[JasenRendon]

How did this turn out? Making a basic Summer Ale and want to try this out. Do you need to add any water or just Apple Juice along with Honey? Worried about a blow off with all of the yeast cake so I may remove some of it.

 

[JasenRendon]

This is what I did, except I used 2 gal of apple juice. Be prepared for an explosion!

How did this turn out? Making a basic Summer Ale and want to try this out. Do you need to add any water or just Apple Juice along with Honey? Worried about a blow off with all of the yeast cake so I may remove some of it.