Yeast cake

[wrighty]

Did 2 similar brews
Coopers sparkling ale 1.7kg
500g ldme
300g ldwm
half can liquid amber malt
12g cascade@30 min
12g sazz @15min
12g sazz @5 min
2 cups yeast cake started cooled boiled water us 05 from pevious brew took off in 4 hours very impessive krausen
Just hope i havent over pitched.
What style of beer am i looking at here?

Wrighty.

[brewbeast]

can you over pitch?

[warra48]

Theoretically you can overpitch, but 2 cups full won't do it.

It is not unusual for me to pitch a new brew straight onto the entire slurry/yeastcake of a previous brew.
It's a lot more than 2 cups full, but it's never harmed my brews.

Don't be concerned about this issue in a HB situation.

[Bizier]

2 cups of US05 in current temperatures will make a damn fine beer with those ingredients.

I think you have a fine example of a Wrighty's European-Australian Amber Ale, or as we say in the business, a WEAAA

[wrighty]

Cheers Warra ,Bizier
Yes all seems good W.E.A.A.A sound good Bizier .
Think i will use some of the next cake to store for a starter
is there a limit to re using your cake?

[warra48]

Cheers Warra ,Bizier
Yes all seems good W.E.A.A.A sound good Bizier .
Think i will use some of the next cake to store for a starter
is there a limit to re using your cake?

Reputedly, some commercial breweries do this up to about 100 times.
However, they have laboratories and facilities which we homebrewers do not have.

So, and I haven't done the research to prove or disprove this, the prevailing wisdom in an homebrew situation is about 6 times or so, or if you are brave, up to about 10 times.

[Bizier]

Following from Warra, think about the cost of your batch vs another sachet of US05 (esp if it has been rebranded *coughcraftbrewer*)...

If you are re-using the yeast, new bacteria is contacting and breeding in the solution every time it is opened to the air.

For US05, I would suggest brewing a smaller beer, then either a few small beers once you have split the yeast, or brewing a big bad beer directly from the whole yeast cake.

I just turfed 3 jars of top-cropped yeast that I initially though were OK, but I started to detect something in the finished beer. No point even thinking of re-using it when new yeast is cheaper than a turfed batch.

Theoretically you could go on for years from one yeast package, but you would need to have near sterility and perfect handling practice. If you have all the culturing know how you can rescusitate sick yeast from a single cell. Again, US05 is cheap and easily available.

[warra48]

Following from Warra, think about the cost of your batch vs another sachet of US05 (esp if it has been rebranded *coughcraftbrewer*)...

If you are re-using the yeast, new bacteria is contacting and breeding in the solution every time it is opened to the air.

For US05, I would suggest brewing a smaller beer, then either a few small beers once you have split the yeast, or brewing a big bad beer directly from the whole yeast cake.

I just turfed 3 jars of top-cropped yeast that I initially though were OK, but I started to detect something in the finished beer. No point even thinking of re-using it when new yeast is cheaper than a turfed batch.

Theoretically you could go on for years from one yeast package, but you would need to have near sterility and perfect handling practice. If you have all the culturing know how you can rescusitate sick yeast from a single cell. Again, US05 is cheap and easily available.

And just to follow on from what Bizier said, the liquid strains WY 1056 or WLP001 from Wyeast and White Labs respectively are supposedly the same strain as US05. I've used both US05 and WLP001 and, to be honest, haven't been able to detect much of a difference, if any. After all, it's a pretty clean neutral yeast, so we are not relying on the inherent character of the yeast to emphasise malt or hop character in our beers.
That's different for most of the UK strains, where we are looking for particular characteristics imparted by the yeast to add complexity/character to our beers which we can't get from dry yeast.

Even the cost of liquid yeast is not that great if your get 3 or 4 brews minimum out of a smack pack.

[wrighty]

Great advice as always guys .
See where can easily overdo things and the sanitation side of things but it sure does fire up your brew
quick smart .The proof will be in the end product .Just about done this brew in the ferment stage will
rack to secondary and do another from the trub.think i will try Biziers columbus ,palisade brew .
Yet to use either of these hops but sounds to good to not try and im all out of hops anyway.
See ross has a special on palisade,even better .

[Bizier]

Hey Wrighty, I put a note on that recipe in that thread.
The good thing about 2 x 45g additions is that you get 2 brews with 90g packs from Ross.

And on the yeast situation, I am going to use a fair bit of dry yeast (S04 and US05, maybe Windsor) when I start using my larger setup, just to minimise variables.

[Anna]

Theoretically you can overpitch, but 2 cups full won't do it.

It is not unusual for me to pitch a new brew straight onto the entire slurry/yeastcake of a previous brew.
It's a lot more than 2 cups full, but it's never harmed my brews.

Don't be concerned about this issue in a HB situation.

Good morning Warra!
Just found this old post of yours. I was thinking of using the slurry from my current JSGA (US-05) for my next brew, but won't it be full of spent hops? Anna

[wrighty]

Morning Anna.
Read the Docs sticky at the top of this forum on yeast starters.
You can always top crop ie just take a scoop off the krausen.Sanitation rules apply.

[Anna]

Thanks Wrighty. Yeah, read Doc's sticky, but he doesn't mention the hops. Or maybe that's what "cold break" is?? Do the hops dissolve or settle to the bottom underneath the yeast cake? (I've never noticed, as I always make OH wash the fermenter out! )

[wrighty]

I dont thnk the amount would matter hops trub etc but you can separate by washing it out .

[warra48]

Just got back from golf. Should have stuck to brewing.

Whenever I've pitched onto the yeast cake, I've just left everything in there.
It does build up a bit with the second brew, but I've always been able to drain it for bottling purposes.

Anyway, I lean my fermenter back about 20º from the vertical so the crud, hops, and yeast falls away from the tap.

If you don't wish to re-use the entire yeast cake, you can harvest a couple of cups full of slurry (be very careful with sanitation), clean the fermenter, sanitise it, and use the harvested slurry to inoculate your new brew.

The beauty of using the whole yeast cake is that I don't need to clean the fermenter, I just use it as is, so long as I resuse it within a few hours!

Off Topic: I brewed an Hefeweizen yesterday. I pitched the slurry of a 4 litre starter of WY3068 I built up from a slant saved from a starter built up in Dec 2009. Starter and wort were at 19ºC when I pitched the yeast last night. This morning it was bubbling away 3 or 4 times a second through the blowoff tube and sounding like an express train going by. When I got back from golf this afternoon, it had filled the fermenter with kraeusen, and was slowly pushing it out of the blowoff tube. Wyeast are not wrong when they recommend a minimum of 33% headspace for that yeast. It's a hungry active beast.

[Anna]

Bad luck about the golf Warra! (That'll teach you to leave your fermenters all alone )

If you leave the hops in the slurry and put the new brew on top of it and your new brew has a different hop schedule, wouldn't the old hops change the flavour profile?

BTW - Speaking of hungry active yeasts, I take it US-05 isn't?? My JSGA clone with US05 isn't doing much at all after 48 hours Anna

[warra48]

Bad luck about the golf Warra! (That'll teach you to leave your fermenters all alone )

If you leave the hops in the slurry and put the new brew on top of it and your new brew has a different hop schedule, wouldn't the old hops change the flavour profile?

BTW - Speaking of hungry active yeasts, I take it US-05 isn't?? My JSGA clone with US05 isn't doing much at all after 48 hours Anna

Anna, the hops are really spent and don't impart much, if anything, to your new brew.

The brew you put on top needs to be consistent with the yeast you are using, and a similar style of beer. You wouldn't put a wheat beer onto the yeastcake from a stout, you'd have a disaster on your hands.
The rule of thumb is that you put a bigger beer or a darker beer onto the yeast cake, not the other way around.

If you are still concerned, have a look at yeast washing. It is not difficult, provided you are particular about your sanitation. That solves the problem, and gets rid of the trub, hops etc.

I don't know why, but my experience with US05 is that it has been slow to fire up in my last 3 or 4 APAs. I think I've solved my problem, as I now have a vial of WLP001 in stock, so I won't need to use US05 in future.

[Anna]

Thanks Warra - that was timely advice. I suppose a Hoegaarden clone on top of a JSGA made with wheat extract would be OK then?

The US05 still hasn't done anything with the JSGA this morning - not even any condensation. I'll do a test SG this afternoon and if it hasn't moved maybe I'll pitch another yeast (it will be 3 days since pitching then). Do you think I could pitch a Coopers yeast on top of it, 'cause I won't be able to get to the HB shop this week? Anna

[Anna]

OK, OK - don't get excited everyone! I just re-read the "Hoegaarden clone" thread (bored at work this morning) and now I realise the US-05 yeast cake from the JSGA brew won't do! Have to go with one of those fancy-ancy liquid yeasts, yeah? Anna

[warra48]

OK, OK - don't get excited everyone! I just re-read the "Hoegaarden clone" thread (bored at work this morning) and now I realise the US-05 yeast cake from the JSGA brew won't do! Have to go with one of those fancy-ancy liquid yeasts, yeah? Anna

Not really, Anna.

If you wish to use a dry yeast, Fermentis Safbrew T58 is suitable, and used by lots of brewers with success: http://www.fermentis.com/FO/60-Beer/60- ... angeHB.asp

If you want to be really authentic, then a liquid yeast such as WY3463, WY3942, or WY3944 would be the go.
Here's a link to Wyeast's site so you can check them out: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain.cfm

I'm probably the wrong person to give advice about Belgian Ales of any sort. I've never brewed one, and don't plan to anytime soon!