I just racked my Smash Time IPA to secondary for dry hopping. My wife and I are brewing an Imperial Stout tomorrow and I planned to use the same yeast (US-05) but I had to fine the IPA with gelatin before racking and don’t know if I can re-use the yeast cake now. This would be my first time recycling yeast. My gut tells me no, but it would be a waste to toss perfectly good, active yeast! What are your thoughts?
Ya know, there are some good reasons not to try this regardless of the gelatin. Yeast is not as healthy after finishing a high gravity, highly hopped beer. The high gravity causes the yeast to be “tired” and the excess hop resins coats the cells causing further problems. Personally, I’d just pitch some fresh yeast.
I would think that the yeast would not floc out because of all the sugars available. The gelatin would sink, but it wouldn’t necessarily take the yeast with it. But I’ve never tried it.
I assume it would work, but I personally wouldn’t repitch a cake that had been gelatin’d. US-05 is cheap enough and two packets should do the trick depending on how imperial you are going with your stout. Rehydrating is very important especially in a higher gravity beer, as not rehydrating will sacrifice 50% of the cells in dry yeast. Peace of mind is worth a few bucks IMHO.
I ended up pitching 2 packets of rehydrated US-05, worked like a charm as I expected it would. It appears to be almost 90% fermented in only 7 days, wow! 1.100 to 1.028, I expect to drop another 10 points before it’s done. The yeast hasn’t flocced out yet and I’m still getting bubbles in the airlock every 5-10 seconds. It already tastes awesome, btw.