Should I reuse this cake?
Moderator: slothrob
Should I reuse this cake?
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?
No suggestions
Just curious if there were any suggestions on this. Currently I'm leaning towards not re-using.
Depends
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.
Your'e gonna taste it
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.
Yes, I agree...
...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?
Good point
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.