Yeast pitching from yeast cake

[augie21]

I have a hoppy wheat that's all done fermenting and plan to pitch an APA on to the cake. I'm just concerned about over pitching. The SG for both batches is 1.052 (that the estimated for the APA, at least).

I don't plan to wash the yeast due to time constraints. Would I be better to take a measured amount from the cake or just pitch onto the entire thing?

 

[grrickar]

I have always pitched on the whole thing. No worries on my results either. Could it be better if I took the time and washed the yeast and made a new starter? Maybe, but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I have used the same yeast cake for up to three back to back brews with no ill results.

That said, I always rack off the trub into a secondary, which then becomes my primary for the next batch when I bottle. That probably helps keep the fresh beer off the dead yeast /shrug

 

[Yooper]

Yes, it would absolutely be better to just scoop out what you need and save the rest in the fridge. You have enough yeast for at least 3 batches of beer, and it would be a huge overpitch to use a whole cake for a 1.052 OG beer.

You can use a sanitized measuring cup and just take out 1/2 cup of the slurry and pour the rest into sanitized jars. Plus, then you have a nice clean sanitized fermenter, and three extra jars of yeast for your next batches.

Some food for thought: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=166221&highlight=why+-to+pitch+on+your+yeast+cake

 

[augie21]

Good advice. Plus I can actually wash the rest of the yeast that doesn't go into tomorrow's brew. Thanks for the responses. I understand why some are leery of this practice, but I've never tried it and this seemed like a safe beer to go with.

 

[flars]

No need to rinse the yeast. Just pour off what is left in the fermentor into a quart jar. If you have a lot of hop debris in the yeast cake, estimate about 1.5 billion cells per milliliter.
Here is a link to more information.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=519995

 

[augie21]

I'm pretty good at keeping the hop debris to minimum when going from kettle to fermentor. The cakes generally seem "clean" enough, though I know it's not only hop debris in the yeast cake. Which brings up the question, are there other things present in the yeast cake that can affect the fermentation? Proteins and dead cell, specifically.