Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Reusing Yeast

I have reused yeast before, by pouring it out of the carboy and into a jug, preparing another starter prior to brewing and using that yeast. It worked as well as purchasing yeast at the homebrew shop and saved me $6.00.

This time, I brewed my West Coast IPA , and then 2 weeks later when fermentation had stopped, I racked it to secondary and brewed my Pale Ale and poured it on the yeast cake in the bottom of my primary carboy.

I was amazed at the difference, the beer went from a gravity of 1.059 to 1.014 in 2 days, completing fermentation in about 20% of the time! I will be racking to the conditioning keg tonight and may be able to drink the beer within 1 week of brewing!

I have decided to brew my stout this weekend and use the yeast cake 1 more time.