Dumping apple juice on my IPA lees?? Opinions?

[MisterWoody]

I just put an IPA into secondary. The bottom of my bucket is filled with hoppy goodness. I've made a couple ciders recently that turned out pretty well and I thought to myself "why not dump a bunch of apple juice and concentrate onto the IPA lees.
Any opinions/comments!?!?

edit: trub, not lees.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

Sounds like a great idea to me. You'll probably pick up some of the hops. Was it a big IPA or normal gravity stuff?

 

[MisterWoody]

1.080 starting.

 

[MisterWoody]

I also have a cider sitting in secondary - been there for about 4 weeks now. Just tasted it and it's kinda sour. It's sitting at about 7%. What do you think would happen if I threw 1lb of brown sugar into it then dumped it onto the trub? I used champagne yeast with that one. Would the yeast fight, work together, etc?
I thought the hops might tame the sour - any thoughts?

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

Thats a pretty big beer for reusing yeast. I'm not saying it won't work. It will probably be fine. But it's just worked pretty hard in your IPA.

I bet the IPA yeast will kick the crap out of the champagne yeast. There's probably a LOT more hanging out in the IPA pool than the cider pool.

Adding the brown sugar will do little for the sourness of the cider. It will basically just boost your ABV. To get rid of the sour you'll need to sorbate and backsweeten or let it age out for a while. (or backsweeten and stove top pasteurize)

 

[MisterWoody]

gotcha - the sugar idea was just to get it fermenting again - mostly just to push the oxygen away from the surface since at this point neither the cider or IPA trub are producing c02. would there be any benefit (besides having more booze) to making a new cider rather than just using what I have already made?

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

Great idea on creating more CO2 to fill headspace.

I would just dump in apple juice instead of an existing batch. I don't see much benefit to adding already fermented cider to a yeast cake.

 

[MisterWoody]

Great idea on creating more CO2 to fill headspace.

I would just dump in apple juice instead of an existing batch. I don't see much benefit to adding already fermented cider to a yeast cake.

I took your advice. Dumped the juice on the IPA lees - fermented wonderfully. I was a little worried about having worn-out yeast but it seemed to do fine. I am going to open up the bucket tonight to taste test and add some canned pumpkin, chopped up apples, some extra sugar and a bunch of spices(all cooked up together of course). I also pulled some champagne yeast left over from my first batch of cider a few months ago to help out just in case the yeast in the bucket is too worn out. I am adding the sugar to create some cO2 to fill head space to keep O2 away. I plan on leaving the new pumpkin/apple slurry in the bucket for 2 more weeks then I will move it to secondary for a couple months. Should be just in time for Autumn. Pretty stoked. I am still a little worried to open the bucket - I hope there's no nasties in there! I'll let you guys know how the taste test goes.

 

[MisterWoody]

It tasted more like a tart beer than anything. It had some tart/sour flavor from being a young cider. I think this is going to be something special in a few months once the tartness fades and the new flavors I added tonight start to shine. Pretty excited!