Yeast Re-Use

[alwilson]

Evenings folks;

Wold reusing yeast from a previous brew carry accross flavours from that first brew?

I want to reuse yeast in progressively stronger beers... Starting with a 4% bitter, 5% porter, 7% ipa and then some kind of monstere there after, maybe an export stout or similar..

Would that work cleanly? I presume i need to wash the yeast in between?

Cheers
Alex

[coatesg]

Yes there will be flavour carry over - but "it depends" as to how much. You'd get carry over of roast flavour from a porter for example from the roasted grains.

I wouldn't reuse the porter or the IPA though - the roast carry over from the porter as above, and the IPA is a) too strong - yeast will already be stressed, and b) the high hop levels causes coating of the yeast cells with compounds from the hops which reduces their viability.

[alwilson]

Ah ok, cheers graeme..

With that in mind, presumably i could reuse yeast in the following manner.

5% amber > 5% porter > 8% stout before retiring that yeast lineage

4% bitter > 7% ipa > retire lineage

?

Cheers again

Alex

[keith1664]

You won't however need to use all the yeast from the previous brew on the next. You can check on Mr Malty for the exact pitching rates but if you were to brew the bitter first then you'd then have enough yeast to brew 2 beers, assuming those weren't overly strong then you have enough for 4, then 8, then 16 etc. So you could do all the beers from the one batch of yeast.

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

[orlando]

I have reused the same yeast in a number of ale style beers quite successfully but I do wonder if it has a similar characteristic imparted to all of them. If you are looking for a particular style then a yeast "designed" for that style is more likely to give it to you.

[alwilson]

Orlando, currently I use the same yeast (Nottingham) for all my beers, so just wanted to get the most out of it to save money, and also I read somewhere that 2nd generation yeast ferments considerably quicker, I think someone on here referred to it as superyeast. Saving a few days would also be nice. So I can brew more

[orlando]

There are a number of threads on here concerning recovering yeast from bottle conditioned beers. The process is a little involved but it does give you yeast for the price of a couple of bottles of beer and you get to drink the beer.

[coatesg]

With that in mind, presumably i could reuse yeast in the following manner.

5% amber > 5% porter > 8% stout before retiring that yeast lineage

4% bitter > 7% ipa > retire lineage

Yeah - should be fine as long as you're good with your sanitation. The trouble comes with very hoppy or stronger beers - though a lot probably depends on strain and your handling and pitching rates. From memory, Rochefort re-pitch their yeast several times, despite their beers being 7.2 and 9.2, but they will know the process inside out and can repeat it very well.

As recommended above, don't just pitch the whole lot - harvest just as much as you need and pitch that (if you can wash, then even better).

Bottle reculturing is fine, but be careful what you choose - a lot are bottling strains, or S04/Notts. If you want the variety of liquid yeast with less cost then splitting the starter, or even better, learning to slant is the way forward.