I want to do a Partigyle next week doing 2 mashes. A Wee Heavy (or 80 schilling) with the first runnings and a Two Penny with the sparge. I have a WLP005 second generation OG 1.061 cake from 5 gallons of ESB I racked today. I was thinking about putting the cake in my new 5 liter erlenmeyer with some 1.080 wort a couple days before brew day. The yeast seems clean and healthy and has produced 2 very fine ales. But what should I use for the lesser gravity Two Penny? Do a seperate 1.040 starter? Or is it OK to “downpitch”?
Yeow, a 1.080 wort to start yeast is a very bad idea IMO. You want to keep it at 1.040 or under. To your second question, it’s fine to pitch from a higher to a lower gravity as long as the first one isn’t too high.
If you have a fresh cake from 1.061 wort, why do you need a starter anyway? My personal opinion is that you can use that cake for both beers. 1.061 isn’t that high for a 1.040 beer and perfect for a 1.080 beer.
Perhaps the cake has been in the fridge for a bit and needs woken up. And yeah go with what Denny said, just feed it with some low gravity wort 12 hours or so before pitching. Use mr. malty and calculate how much youll need for the 2 penny and the 80-/.