2 ques regarding fermentation & repitching

[bazookazilla]

I have a porter in the fermenter right now that started out at 1.076 and went down to 1.011 in a week. I mostly followed the B.W. porter recipe in BCS. I amped up the grain bill a little bit as well as the hops. I have it in a temp controlled 'fridge and it started started fermenting at 67 deg just like the recipe calls for. I pitched a 1L starter and fermentation kicked off quickly and continued vigorously for the next several days. At about 1 week from pitching I went to turn the controller up(thinking I would raise it a degree a day for a week or so then crash it) I noticed the temp had dropped to 64. Then it went to 62. 1.5 weeks after pitching it is at 58. Wyeast 1056, btw. I ordered a FermWrap and expect to get it Saturday. I know that the beer has fermented out, but when I am able should I raise it back to 70 or so to let the yeast "finish" (finish...hehehehe ) or should I just go ahead and crash it and get ready to keg? Also, I am thinking about brewing the same porter recipe Monday and I want to use the yeast cake that I have in the fermenter. Good idea or am I being foolish??

[Ozwald]

It depends.

What does it taste/smell like? If it's clean & finished, there's no point in raising the temps. It's called a D-rest for a reason. If the beer can benefit by all means go for it.

[bazookazilla]

It smells and tastes great! I'm just wonder how to go about conditioning at this point. I'm trying to figure out if there a way to make it better. It tastes so great I think I wanna try to make the exact recipe again.

[Ozwald]

I would recommend waiting a week after you hit FG, double checking the FG to make 100% sure it hasn't moved at all (FG hydro's are a beautiful thing) and bottle it up. I wouldn't worry too much about the temp as long as you don't drop. Room temp would be fine, even if it swings a little bit. For example, Spidey's fine & he swings a lot.

[bazookazilla]

I think I'm gonna brew the same recipe again on Monday. I'm planning on racking the 1st brew to a secondary fermenter and gonna pour my new wort directly onto the yeast cake. Then probably shaking the hell out of it!!


if this is a stupid idea please tell me!!!

Thanks for all of your advice and help, Oz!!

[spiderwrangler]

I'm planning on racking the 1st brew to a secondary fermenter and gonna pour my new wort directly onto the yeast cake.

As long as you are willing to accept the gamble inherent in direct cake pitching. Alternately, you could pour off the slurry, settle, decant, and rinse with sterile water, settle and pour off the good stuff into your next batch to leave the trub and meh yeast behind.

[bazookazilla]

I'm planning on racking the 1st brew to a secondary fermenter and gonna pour my new wort directly onto the yeast cake.

As long as you are willing to accept the gamble inherent in direct cake pitching. Alternately, you could pour off the slurry, settle, decant, and rinse with sterile water, settle and pour off the good stuff into your next batch to leave the trub and meh yeast behind.

I don't think I'm lazy, but I am very restricted time wise. I have a copy of JZ's yeast book but haven't read it for over a year. How many days would I need to properly rinse/decant yeast?

[Ozwald]

Take a look at the Rinsing Yeast sticky in Fermentation