Gents (and ladies)-
I recently screwed up a BeerSmith calculation and bought twice the amount of specialty grain I needed for a stout. So, I'm planning on brewing the same beer again with the remaining grain but with some sort of twist, maybe some cherries or vanilla. I've heard about people just racking wort onto the yeast cake from their last beer, and I'd like to try that. I assume the new wort needs to be put on the yeast cake immediately after I rack the old beer to secondary. Can I just leave the dried up kreusen in there without risking contamination? Also, should I stir up the yeast cake or just leave it be? Thanks for any advice you guys can offer.
I have also just racked the new beer onto the old yeast cake.....and it worked good...but im not gonna make a habit of it....i fear off flavors could happen .....the last brewing tv episode shows a good way to wash yeast that is not too hard......thats how i do it now
So leave a tiny bit of beer in there, stir up the yeast cake and beer remnants into a slurry, pour half out, and then pour in the new beer and shake as usual? Sounds good, thanks.
By the way, the wort in there now is going to be a Makers Mark Stout. My first dark beer since switching to all-grain.
there's a big posting on homebrewtalk about how racking onto an entire yeast cake is usually pitching at too high of a rate. I would recommend pouring out half of it and racking onto it. That being said, I've certainly fermented on an entire cake and not noticed taste issues. Up to you entirely. Don't worry about the krausen or infection.
Because I'm incredibly lazy.