Should I reuse this cake?

[jcassady]

I've got a cherry wheat in the secondary right now and I'm planning on making a strawberry ale next week or so. I want to bottle and brew in the same day/evening so I was considering saving the yeast cake from the secondary and pitching into the strawberry. Do you think the cherry flavor will still be in the yeast if I dump the yeast cake into a glass jug, refrig it and dump out all the beer, on top of the yeast, I can before pitching again into the primary?

[jcassady]

Just curious if there were any suggestions on this. Currently I'm leaning towards not re-using.

[jayhawk]

If you think having a hint of cherry in the strawberry would bother you then don't reuse. Personally, I would not worry too much because I think it would take a very sophisticated palate to detect a hint of cherry in a strawberry beer.

[dirtfish]

This reply is probably too late...-but-flavor from your first beer WILL be transferred to the second one. (I have firsthand experience in this matter, and secondhand and even thirdhand.) I repitched yeast from a spiced holiday ale to a pale ale and then to an Arrogant !@#$ clone, then down the drain. All subsequent batches tasted of the spices from the spiced ale. So if you plan for it, it could be great-if you don't, you may not like what you get.

[jayhawk]

...that spiced ale would make a mark an pale ales etc. But when we are referring to two "berry" beers, with the berries being somewhat similar in flavour and colour I think that things would be hardly noticeable. Would you have been able to detect the spices from the first batch in another batch of spiced ale?

[dirtfish]

The pale ale is definately going to show added flavors easily-don't know if the flavors would have come through in another spiced ale. I would guess that you could start getting subtle references as you change flavors and keep re-pitching yeast in successive batches. I think berries would be a good opportunity to experiment with this as flavors would be more compatible.