Reusing yeast

I know I haven't posted in a while, school has really been getting to me. Not so much so as to prevent me from brewing, or enjoying good brew, just so much so as to prevent me from posting.

I have re-used yeast a few times: When I reused yeast, I siphoned the beer off of the yeast, and then covered the carboy with aluminum foil. I bottled that batch of beer, and then brewed another batch. When that batch was ready, I put it in the carboy. That was a time span of about three hours between pulling off one batch of beer and replacing it with the second one. I have re-used the same yeast twice (a total of three batches of beer on one packet of yeast).

I started with a strawberry pale ale, then a chocolate porter, and finished it with an imperial stout. The strawberry flavors (I put them in after the boil, and removed them prior to putting the wort in the carboy) made themselves known only to the more discriminant of palates. The chocolate flavor did carry over a wee bit into the stout, but obviously there were no hints of the strawberry flavor.

This is a picture of the different sediment layers that resulted from the reuse of yeast.

Bedazling Brown

7 Lbs Caramunic Malt I
4 Lbs Caramunic Malt III
1/2 Lb Chocolate
1/2 Lb Roasted

1 oz UK Golding hops

British Ale Liquid Wyeast

1 lb of the above grain mix was toasted. Then mashed at 125F for 45 minutes, at 145F, 45 minutes. Sparged to create 5.5 gal volume. 45 minute boil. 1/3 oz bitter hops at 30 min left in boil. 1/4 oz flavor hops at 10 minutes left in boil. Remaining hops at 1 minute for aroma.

Trying the Tripel

3# Cara Hell
4# Light Munic
5# Maris Otter
3/4 oz Hallertau Bittering Hops
1 1/4 oz Hallertau Flavoring Hops
3/4 oz Glacier Aroma Hops

1/2# Candy Sugar (used later)

Trappist High Gravity

Took 1/2# mixed malt and toasted it at 350F for ten minutes

Mashed with 2.5 gal at 125F for ~40 minutes (some reading I'd done concerning Tripels said that longer mashing should occur at the lower temperatures to ensure the beta conversion makes the beer exceptionally dry). Added 1.25 gal at 200F which raised the mash to 150F; held for 30 minutes. Sparged with 2 gallons (should have had more). Boiled at light boil (again, in congruence with reading) for 1 hour, starting with bittering hops, adding flavor hops at 15 minutes remaining in boil, and adding aroma hops at last minute. Let it seep for about 20 minutes. Cooled with 30 lbs of ice. Pitched yeast at about 75F.

OG: 1.045

Put candy sugar in smallest sauce pot (.5 qt?) and filled to one inch above sugar. Boiled for five minutes constantly stirring. Cooled in bath in sink until cool to touch. Poured into carboy after the fermentation started to slow. Next time will try more water, too much sticky stuff left in pot after I tried to pour it into carboy. Started to aggressively ferment about 12 hours after addition of sugar.

FG: 1.010

Tasted during racking. If I was just tasting the beer, I would very much enjoy it... But... Too hoppy for the style, as well, most of the esters I expected to taste did not come through, so I would consider it a stylistic failure, but a tasting success

Don's Daring IPA Suplemental

The change in specific gravity was completely unexpected. The brew fermented for over two weeks. The yeast was pitched on a Saturday afternoon. Come Sunday it began to burp. For the next few days it fermented agressively. On Thursday I removed the blow control air lock and replaced it with a simple air lock. It continued to produce CO2 for another week and a half until two weeks and a day had passed since the yeast was originally pitched.


The smoked malt came throw very strong and hit the pallet first. Much more subdued the hops comes through. The finish is lightly hopped.


We dry hopped it with an ounce of Mt Hood and an ounce of Chinook. About a half gallon of beer was lost during kegging due to that which was absorbed by the hops (forgot to set up squeezing rig) and the sediment at the bottom of the carboy. The tasting during kegging showed that the smokie flavor was beginning to subside, and the hop note was much stronger, with only a mild increase in bitterness. Still struggling with clarity.

Don's Daring IPA

7 lbs Pale,
2 lbs Caramunich I
1 lb Caramalt
1/2 lb Smoked
1 oz Cascade (added before being brought to boil)
1 oz Mt Hood and 1 oz Chinook (added at 10 minutes to end of boil)
1/2 oz of Mt Hood and Chinook (added at 1 minute to end of boil)
Northwestern Liquid Yeast

Mashed at 130F, and 150F. We added water at about 190F, which was less than what Papazan said we should use. It resulted in a post-immersion temperature of 140F, necessitating some use of the turkey boiler to raise temperature. Next time we'll just boil water, and let it cool a minute before using it to raise temperature. Sparged with ~1.5 gal, creating 6 gal batch. We boiled for 1 hour. We were advised be a very experienced home brewer to try adding our flavor hops at 30 minutes to end of boil, but we thought that was too long. We used 30 lbs of ice to cool wort down to about 70F.

OG: 1.042
FG: 1.006

Douple Dunkle

4# Pils Malt
3# Munich 2 Malt
3# Wheat Malt
2 oz Black Patent Malt
1/2# Chocolate Malt
1/2 oz Hersbrucker Bittering
1/2 oz Hersbrucker Flavoring
1/4 oz Hersbrucker Aroma
Belgian Yeast

Two temperature mash, 135, 155. Sparged with some hot water, and hot tap water. Boiled for 1 hour. Cooled with 20 lbs of ice and everything else cold in my freezer.

OG: 1.040
FG: 1.015

Revised Name: Cloud of Confusion Pale Ale

The strawberry taste is not very strong in this beer, so I felt like it would be misleading for it to have the same name as my previously successful strawberry pale ale. I decided to go with a preppy name since most of my beers have not been named that way. The beer is cloudy (hence the name) I think that I did not wait for the wort to cool enough prior to putting the strawberries in. This light bodied beer has a much more delicate taste than the previous beer, but with well pronounced hoppy earth and light spice tones. It does not have the same malty flavor that I tasted at racking, but finishes clean. It did not turn out exactly the way I wanted, but it tastes good non-the-less and so I shall declare it a success.