What to do...

[Leo1983]

I usually find 4 weeks in Primary and 4 weeks in keg gets me a beer that has aged well and tastes good. I used to taste and drink my beer earlier than this, but try to leave until 8 weeks old before tasting as I find by this time the beer has matured and tastes better.

To try something a little different, I was going to keg my 6% APA a little earlier than usual tomorrow after 2.5 weeks in Primary, make a new IPA and dump the IPA wort into the FV on top of the yeast cake left by the APA.

However, I looked at the calendar and realised the APA is actually only 10 days old, not 2.5 weeks...

I took a gravity reading and its at 1.010 which is lower than I was expecting (it should have gone to 1.014) so I guess it is at FG.

So my question is what would you guys recommend?

Option 1 - Keg the APA at 10 days old and leave to condition warm (in the shed) for a while in the Keg (maybe 4-5 weeks), dump the IPA wort onto the yeast cake in the FV from the APA and put that in the fermentation fridge.

Option 2 - Leave the APA in the FV but take out of the fermentation fridge and leave in warm conditions (in the shed) until a later time. Make the IPA and put that in the fridge with 2 packets of Safale S-05

Option 3 - Leave the APA in the fermentation fridge another 2 weeks then Keg. Do the IPA in a couple weeks and then dump it on the yeast cake.

Thanks!

 

[Slid]

I doubt that there is much to choose between the options, so what I say is basically not much use. However:

One pack of US-05 will suffice.
If you swirl the trub a little after transfer out of the primary FV, you can get at least two 250ml bottles worth of very viable yeast, sitting in its favoured element of green beer. The bottles come initially in packs of 12 and filled with with pop (lemonade etc) and the yeast will keep very well in the fridge for a couple of months. Putting a new brew on a full yeast cake may be over-pitching and it seems wrong to me, for reasons that are hard to explain scientifically.
A shed might be a bit warm in the UK at the moment.

 

[Dutto]

I agree with Slid above ...

I have never dumped one brew on top of another. This is mainly due to fear that the first brew may already be screwed up and it will pass everything on to the second brew; plus a Yeast Starter is so easy to make.

My shed is horrifically high at the moment (even my brick garage with a lean-to over the south facing side sits at over 22*C for most of the day) so I wouldn't consider moving the APA out of a fridge into my shed.

 

[Leo1983]

Cheers for the advice... option 3 was thrusted upon me as I have too much to do to fit a brew in today now... but I have warmed the setting on the fridge from 19 degrees up to 22 to let the yeast do its thing in a slightly warmer setting.

Also - probably wont dump the IPA onto the yeast cake as this is no doubt going to be vastly overpitching... I may try and collect the yeast into 2-3 bottles/jars and refridgerate, then use one of those on the IPA and see how that goes.

 

[Llamaman]

My second brew I dumped the wort on the yeast cake from the first. It went off like a rocket - krausen volume of nearly 50% that of the wort so it burst out of the fermenter. Not ideal. Still waiting for that beer to condition to see if the lightning start led to off flavours.

What I do now is collect the cake, rinse it of most of the trub and then only repitch some of it. It means I can't bottle and brew the same day, but as bottling is such a time consuming faff this is a blessing in disguise...

 

[Slid]

My second brew I dumped the wort on the yeast cake from the first. It went off like a rocket - krausen volume of nearly 50% that of the wort so it burst out of the fermenter. Not ideal. Still waiting for that beer to condition to see if the lightning start led to off flavours.

What I do now is collect the cake, rinse it of most of the trub and then only repitch some of it. It means I can't bottle and brew the same day, but as bottling is such a time consuming faff this is a blessing in disguise...

Over pitching tends to lead to more bland tasting beers, from what I have read, as few esters are produced by a yeast that is almost completely un-stressed.

As far as trub collection goes, I have had good results from leaving a bit of beer in the trub and swirling and pouring it from the FV into a large jug and decanting into 250ml lemonade bottles. There is usually about one to one and a half inches of yeast in each little bottle and the rest in ever clearing beer.

I store these in the fridge and just bung the whole bottle in, shaken up numerous times during the brew day at room temperature. Up to 3 months storage in the fridge seems OK. Very good active yeast every time.

Only one "generation" down, though. Once the little bottles have gone, it's a new yeast sachet every time.