Yeast rinsing after pitching on yeast cake?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Nugent

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Sep 6, 2008
Messages
707
Reaction score
19
Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada
My gut instinct and experience is telling me just to dump this and not bother.

I brewed an Irish Red (ca. 1.051) and then pitched a 1.052 stout right on to the yeast cake. Anyhoo, racked the stout and was thinking about rinsing and saving the yeast (1084). There seems to be A LOT of dead yeast cells and cr@p at the bottom of the 1 gal. jug that I poured the swirled yeast and boiled/cooled water into. Not as much of that creamy, white yeast in suspension that I'm used to.

Go with my gut or save a few jars?
 
Went ahead and did it.

It took a lot longer to get three jarfuls - swirled, let settle and poured into the half-pint jars, then repeated three times.

By the third jar, there wasn't enough good stuff left to bother - a thick-a$$ layer of darker, chunky dead yeast. What I got, though, was nice and creamy white with a layer of watery stout.

I'll make a starter for my next Irish brew, but will probably have a back up smack pack just in case.
 
Back
Top