Beer Forum

I repitched for the first time today and just wanted to reassure myself that I did it correctly. I racked a five gallon batch of IPA into the secondary and then with a pyrex measureing cup (soaked in iodine for a while) I scooped off the yeast form the bottom. I then put that into a Nalgene bottle (also in iodine) and shook like mad. I then poured the frothy part into my new batch of beer. Sound good? The new batch seemed to be stuck, I brewed it yesterday morning and added yeast from a vile. Nothing at all by today. It may be to cold and just could get started. Anyone with some thoughts or reasurency

photoguy wrote:I repitched for the first time today and just wanted to reassure myself that I did it correctly. I racked a five gallon batch of IPA into the secondary and then with a pyrex measureing cup (soaked in iodine for a while) I scooped off the yeast form the bottom. I then put that into a Nalgene bottle (also in iodine) and shook like mad. I then poured the frothy part into my new batch of beer. Sound good? The new batch seemed to be stuck, I brewed it yesterday morning and added yeast from a vile. Nothing at all by today. It may be to cold and just could get started. Anyone with some thoughts or reasurency

Besides the obvious possible problems, I think you under pitched. How much liquid was the frothy mixture? The procedure you cited sounds like the basic correct way to wash yeast. But in doing so you just get viable yeast. If you had 300 ml of froth I don’t think you would have the same cell count as a 300 ML starter (I'm just throwing out that number). You most likey should of stepped up the cell count. But then again, I don’t think a severe under-pitch would lead to the lag time you are talking about.

Was the second addition (the vile) just because you were worried?

How cold are you talking?

What was your iodine/water ratio?

In general, if you don't know, you could have just kept the whole yeast cake as is. Unless you had a ton of hops and other crap while playing with yeast isn't that hard, is advanced. IMHO the cost of new yeast and starter is a lot less than the other ingredients. But it is fun to experiment.


You might want to look at http://thebrewingnetwork.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1040&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

What was the OG of the IPA you repitched from? It's best to repitch from a low or normal gravity beer although I've read post that brewers have repitched from gravity's as high as 1.060. Like Yinzer said, how cold are you talking about? I repitched this weekend too for the first time. I poured the yeast slurry from primary into a 2 quart Nalgene bottle, added 1 quart sterile water and shook. I had only about an inch of frothiness on top, didn't seem like enough and when I poured it into the fermenter the liquid underneath the frothiness came out so I thought screw it and poured the whole thing in. Had a violent fermentation in a Russian Imperial Stout.

I'm not too sure what you two mean by frothy mixture. It seems like you hae three componets. Crap on the bottom, water with yeast and foam on the top. From what I understand is that you use the top two parts or eveything that hasn't settled out.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hbrew/hbyewash.htm

Three components it is, but I thought you should only pitch the top creamy layer and nothing else. I thought the creamy layer contained all the healthy yeast. When I pitched the whole thing there was still some black crap in the bottom of the Nalgene bottle..

I originally pitched a tude of yeast and then the next day added the yeast slurry. The gravity of the beer I used the yeast from was a bit high, over 1.060. The frothy part was only an inch and a half. Now that the fermentation is going, I think my initial problem was temperature and that is why the tube didn't start fermenting. My house is just to damn cold. I have the bucket wrapped up like a little kid now. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

When you repitch, from one fermentor to another, do you have to chill the yeast? Or can you just pitch it.

I racking my brew off the cake in the fermenter and load my new wort right on top of the existing yeast cake. I dont bother scooping or transferring the yeast.

Same here Homegrown. I just loaded a Bitter onto a yeast cake, shook the CRAP out of it and it was done in 3 days...

Trub shouldn't cause a problem unless...
1 - You are fermenting a delicate beer AFTER a hoppy one
2 - You leave the second wort on the trub for 2 weeks or more

If your house is THAT cold you should make a Lager