Beer Forum

I've got a batch of california common beer (from BCS) that I'm about to move into a secondary. I had made a good sized starter (about 2L+) that I decanted and pitched into the Cal Common. Ferment took off quickly and vigorously for a few days and steady ever since.

Wondering what other styles I could possibly reuse this yeast with. I could work it so I could brew soon, and rack right onto the yeast cake left after I rack the Cal Common to the secondary. I've never done this before, and do worry about the other remains at the bottom of the carboy though I used all NBrewer hops and don't use hop sacks. I left as much of the sludge behind in the kettle as possible by using a racking cane to transfer the wort.

Thoughts?

I had considered just dumping/cleaning the yeast from the carboy and brewing a pale, but curious if there are styles I could try with the existing 2112. I don't have a fridge for fermentation. I basically kept the Cal Common at 60° by using a tub of water and the cold of the cement floor in our basement.

Since you're not able to keep lager ferment temps otherwise, might try using your San Fran to attempt a few other lager type styles and make your own hybrids...

Baltic Porter per Gordon Strong

+1 on Baltic Porter
Also, Irish Red would do well with this yeast.

Try a few American Ale recipes, like APA, Am. Brown, Cream Ale (gotta wash the yeast first), and IIPA.
Basically, any beer that relies on a clean, low ester yeast profile will do well when brewed with that yeast.

HTH-

I make a simple blond ale with the San Fran lager yeast as well.

The Fool

A biere de garde would be interesting with this yeast too!

PS - if you don't feel like washing the yeast, you could just sanitize your lip of your carboy, and carefully pour 2 cups or so into a sanitized container and then just pitch that directly into your chilled batch of wort immediately. It will be just fine w/o rinsing (although rinsing will give you healthier yeast).

I recently took a miabock grain bill and used NB hops at a cal common bitterness ratio. I fermented at 48F. The beer came out ok but I found that at that temp I still got quite a bit of fusel alcohols. I had fresh yeast and made a starter on a stir plate, however I only did one step on the starter so that could have been a result of not quite pitching enough yeast for a beer that big OG=1.072. In the end I concluded the beer would have been better using a german lager strain. Just my 0.2 on this particular Lager hybrid.

oh and +1 on the baltic porter

Prost!
Dan

I agree on the Baltic Porter. But if Porteers are not your bag, I also did an American Red using this yeast. Be careful on the hopping rates, this clean yeast really lets the IBUs come through, probably even more than Chico.