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Triple Repitch

BILLY BREW

Grandmaster Brewer
Joined
Dec 25, 2006
Messages
354
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Location
CHICAGOLAND AREA
Happy Holidays all! Hope everyone got what they wanted for Christmas, like a good amount of time to enjoy your craft! ;)

Here's my question;

I make ales in 3's starting with a 3 gallon pale (or similar) Then I make a brown ale (or similar) in a 6 gallon batch pouring over the 3 gallon yeast cake.

Next I usually make an imperial, or a barley wine on that yeast cake.
In the past I used a Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast, due to it's tolerance for high alcohol.

This time I was thinking of using American Ale 1056, as it has a bit more neutral of taste.

Question, Do you think, with the the yeast cake being so large, it would handle the higher alcohol, or would the yeast die off too quickly to finish off the imperial?

As always, thanks for the ideas, advice, and conversation.
Bill
 
While I don't pitch on top of a previous beer. I do harvest and rinse the yeast from a batch to pitch into the new batch. I don't step up but brew 5G of say a pale then harvest, rinse then repitch to a higher ABV beer like an Imperial IPA. I will also repitch that onto a high ABV beer like an Imperial Porter.  I just did a couple weeks ago using Safale US-05 which I believe is the same as 1056 and WPL001. The yeast has no difficulties getting through the imperial porter. The attenuation was at the top of the scale. Probably a bit more than I wanted.
 
The 1056 will do high alcohol. I've gotten it to go to 12% with some zinc and double oxygenation. Ironically, the highest alcohol I've made was with Kolsch yeast (14%). It's really about how healthy you keep the yeast, not just the volume.
 
Yes, I have done that using 1056 with good results. All of my big gravity beers are pitched directly on a freshly finished yeast cake.
 
Thanks for the confirmation, Fellas.
BTW, just sampled my triple lager project and it looks like another A+
Bock 7.5%
Dopple 10.2%
Maibock 5.5%
Gonna be a great Spring!!!!!!
 
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