Yeast Help

[therealrsr]

I just racked a cider to a corny for cold conditioning. It is your basic Musselmann's Fresh Press (commercial brand trying to sound cool but it is a bit more apple flavor). A bit of holiday flavoring, some LME, brown sugar, AJ concentrate ,honey and maple syrup. Pretty strong but not offensively so because crisp but with some sweetness left, hydr. ~12% on tonights test. The Nottingham worked well up to this and then sank while still reading 1.012. I wanted the sweetness so I diverged from apfel's champagne yeast rec and picked notty for this reason. Just messing around, learning and no disrespect to Ed meant.
Anyway, tasted so good at sample I thought why not save this culture for a change. So I did doubling volume with AJ to get it going again in a 2 liter. Then my question came, the Notty didn't finish out really it quit when the % got too high. What does this do to a yeast. Is it still suitable. Again I am just messing around but thought of trying a fruit beer with the culture and don't want to waste 5 gallons.

 

[wyzazz]

You'll want to build that stressed yeast back up with a starter to get it healthy again. Wash it, make a low OG starter (1.020 - 1.030) and step that up over a week. Then you should have some fairly healthy yeast again.

If I can get a nice healthy pitch of yeast from the dregs of an Ommegang Three Philosophers bottle then you can certainly do the same with this.

 

[therealrsr]

I have read Jamil's comments on starters re: young healthy vs weak (thin cell wall) heavily propogated at higher temp. Just made me wonder what a high alcohol environment did to the cell structure if anything.

Any thoughts on using an ale yeast used in a cider then re-pitched for an ale? I wouldn't mind brewing up a blueberry ale with apple tones from the yeast, or even just a crisp cream ale with a hint of apple. Will it even give a hint of the apple? Uncharted waters for me.

Oh yeah, how do I wash the yeast?

 

[wyzazz]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/

Yeast typically takes several generations to "mutate" so I wouldn't worry too terribly much about them going the way of a wine/champagne yeast that quickly. The yeast shouldn't provide any apple flavor at all. If you want apple you could look up acetaldehyde.

 

[therealrsr]

just came back to edit after finding that sticky, but thanks wise! So after washing and rebuilding it will be basically the same as rehydrated Nottingham packet? Seems like a lot of work compared to a cheap dry packet.

 

[wyzazz]

Not too much work for me, but I do it because I like the experience anyway, just like brewing. One added benefit is that you typically get a lot more yeast from washing than you get in a single sachet/vial/pouch.