Re-pitching from a yeast cake

[Yogibeera]

I have been reading about people using a yeast cake from a previous brew to ferment an additional brew. What are the guidelines/restrictions for doing this? how do you store it and how long is it good? It sounds like an interesting idea, but also a bit tricky. any info is much appreciated!

 

[mikescooling]

I only have a minute to touch on this. I like to brew one beer just for the yeast cake, that beer is about 4-4.5 abv as not to stress the yeast. I then pour 2/3rds into mason jars and store them in the fridge to be later washed. I use that last third still in the carboy, as yeast for something big like a high abv beer. good luck

 

[JonM]

I do pretty much the same as above. I usually swirl up the cake and then pour it into sanitized beer bottles. Once it settles, you can get a good idea of how much yeast/trub is each bottle. (If you want to measure, take another beer bottle, pour 50 ml of water in it, mark the level, repeat. And then compare)

Then you can go to Mr Malty pitching rate calculator, select the repitch from slurry tab, and fill in the fields/move the sliders and it'll tell you how much to use. I did this in my last two batches and it worked like a champ.

Oh, and the percentage or yeast/non yeast material doesn't require total precision.

 

[Demus]

It mostly depends on how soon you need to use it. What I've done with success when planning a big brew, is do a smaller one a few weeks ahead. For example, when I did my 11% Barleywine, I first did a 4.5% brown. I let it ferment completely in primary, but you could also do this at transfer time if you secondary. On brew day of the Barleywine, during the boil I kegged the brown. Once the Barleywine was chilled, I transferred it right into the fermenter from the brown. This way the yeast was fresh, and I didn't even have to clean the fermenter! I aerated with o2 and that was that. Had no issues, a timely ferment down to 76% attenuation and the beer was great. If you can coordinate your brew days, this is about the simplest way to do it....

 

[sivispacemparabe11um]

Here is a good video explaining yeast washing.