This weekend I’m planning on racking my current brew (Honey Basil Pale Ale) to a 2ndary or keg, and then dropping my newly brewed APA on top of the yeast cake existing in the primary…is this an OK thing to do, or am I asking for an infection?
I used this method on my most recent brew - I dropped a brown porter over the yeast cake created by my standard bitter, and got amazing results…I’m hoping to repeat these results with the pale ale, but wanted to get some feedback before brew day.
I’m assuming that the “basil” in the name of your beer indicates that you have or are going to add that herb.
Anyway, assuming that you didn’t add basil to the primary fermentation, there won’t be any major negative effect.
You might be over pitching, but if the original beer isn’t infected, reusing the yeast cake won’t infect the next one.
+1. but if you put basil in the boil or primary I don’t think you will get away without basil flavour in the next beer. But I could be wrong.
Hop flavor and bittering can be transferred via the yeast into the subsequent ferment. Color and roastiness can also be transferred via the yeast. I’ve pitched onto yeast cake before and it works well as long as you don’t work from hoppy to malty or from dark to light beers. I guess I would also avoid going from a spiced beer to non-spiced to avoid that flavor carry over.
Smoke also carries over.
This +1
Sweet! I guess I’ll have a little bit of Basil Flavor in my Pale Ale, but I think that’s going to work in my favor and it will meld well with Columbus and Centennial and Cascade hops…plus I’m adding Citra Whole hops for dry hopping.
The Honey Basil Pale Ale involved the same grain bill as my pale ale with Columbus Bittering hop followed by the addition of basil at the last 5 minutes and flame out.
I’m going to add a tiny bit of gypsum as well to my APA to see if it gives it a little crispiness…as long as I don’t melt in the heat, it should be all good 8)
Sounds interesting. Please report back on how it turns out.
“Might be” overpitching? Probably over pitching by 6Xs the amount. Maybe 8. The other concern is how much dead yeast you will be carrying over from previous batch. Not going to be a huge problem on first generation but on consecutive gens it can become a problem.
Not saying it can’t be done and you may even have great results but you will have more consistent results if you pitch an “appropriate” amount. Usually, when I got ontop of an existing yeast cake it is only one gen and from a very low grav. beer to a very high.
It’s definitely an experiment since I’m going from same gravity to same gravity…at least it’s only the 1st generation so I’m hoping it will give good results along with a fast fermentation.
Well, I’ve done it many times before (as well as countless other people) and in my experience you will get better results, and much more consistent results by using a portion of the cake. Also, the “braun hefe” or brown, dried yeast on the sides of your carboy is something you are really better cleaning off. It has bitter, harsh hop compounds and dead yeast you really don’t want in your beer.
I’m not a big fan of pitching directly on a yeast cake, especially not a low gravity beer. You are better off, IME, going with a portion of the slurry and a clean fermenter.
My own experience is that I far prefer the results from using only part of a yeast slurry over using the whole thing in most circumstances. I split the slurry into 2 or 3 containers when I save it. The only time I use the whole thing is when I make an extremely high OG beer, say over 1.090.
I just tried this, pitching a fresh wort into the empty bucket that I just racked from. It was planned but did not execute well, the timing was rushed and I realized at the last moment that the primary I was emptying was a black IPA! Holy dark before light, Batman. It was too late at that time so I guess we will see what becomes of my pale ale wort. I will try to report back. In the future I hope to always take time to clean the collected yeast, at least a little and then make a starter. Still, this hobby has unlimited opportunities for discovery. :-\
You don’t need a starter if the slurry is fresh. That’s the beauty of yeast harvesting.
Update:
After a day of brewing in 100F heat, the wort ended flowing on top of the yeast at about 85F…it started bubbling as soon as it hit the yeast…then I transported it to a fermentation fridge across town…(this goes against all my brewing practices BTW)…plus it came out at a lower gravity than expected, about 1.040 (I was thinking I’d get at least 1.050!) - it was just a weird brew day altogether!
Guess what…this beer turned out superb…one of my best APA’s ever…maybe it was the whole Citra dry hops, or that little bit of Gypsum I threw in, but I’m really happy with the results! Hope I can repeat them…!
85 degrees?! Another good reason to run off, cool your wort to proper pitching temps and pitch a proper amount of yeast. How’s your head retention on this batch? I recon if you got it cooled down quick enough you kept the fusels at a minimum but I still have to wonder that no matter how well the beer turned out if it could have even been better had you cooled your wort first to 70 degrees and pitched only a quarter of the slurry.
Denny - I haven’t pitched on a cake before, but I plan to use a 1.057 ESB cake for a 1.100 Barleywine soon. Based on other things I’ve read, I was thinking of only using half the cake to avoid overpitching and massive blowoff. So do you think using the whole cake is the best plan?
Agreed! I ran my water through a pre-chiller and then ran the wort through a plate chiller, and it still didn’t cool it enough!
Anyway, I miraculously did not get any fusels, nor any detectable esters, and head retention is nice - it’s really a great beer!..it was probably 30 minutes by the time I got the ale cooled to 75 and probably another 12 before I got it to a fermentation temp of 62. My guess is that the 2 week plus fermentation with such a high amount of active yeast cleaned up any off flavors.
Go to www.mrmalty.com. Use the calculator to get an idea how much yeast you need. Harvest slurry in mason jars and dump the amount you need into fermenter. But half the slurry is probably about right. You would not need the entire slurry.
Thanks Keith - I had figured about 1/3 to 1/2 the cake based on Mr. Malty and Yeastcalc recommendations.