Barley wine with 4 week old yeast cake?

[jbaker9]

Dear AHB'ers

I brewed an ordinary bitter and a stout both at ~ 1050 using S-04 with the intention to reuse the yeast cake for a 1100 barley wine. The plan was to brew straight after racking off beer, but life got in the way.

By the time I brew the yeast cake will be 4 weeks old. Will this be ok for barley wine if I make a starter a few days before brewing to get the yeast active again?

Cheers
James

 

[Mardoo]

What temperature has the cake been at for those four weeks?

 

[Digga]

I have brewed with stored cake, not washed for a fair while 12 weeks seems to come to mind but didn't date the bottles. Unsure if this is excepted in the community or the "right" thing to do but the beer has turned out fine.
I generally ferment clean as in no loose hops in the fermenter to get in the yeast cake. Cold crash leaving a tiny amount of beer on the top and swirl a little to loosen cake and store in PET. Cleaned and sanitized of course.
Often after filled to the brim on bottle day it settles to around 3/4 of yeast and the rest beer. Release pressure decant beer onto ground and pitch into wort.
Some time needing to fill bottle with wort and cap shake and dump in fermenter again.

Haven't had an issue yet. Don't see there being an issue from longish term storage of cake for re-use.

My 2c probably wrong but hey works for me so I will continue.

 

[contrarian]

If you've stores the yeast cake chilled in the fridge in sanitized containers then should be fine. I have revived yeast from jars that was over 12 months old.

If it has just been sitting in the bottom of the fermenter for a month then I would imagine one sniff would tell you the answer and it would probably be no!

 

[jbaker9]

I decanted to a sanitised flask straight after racking beer then straight to fridge. Sounds like I should be fine.

Cheers
James

 

[Mardoo]

You'll be fine.

 

[MartinOC]

You'll be fine.

Wot he said.

Relax & just do it.

 

[jbaker9]

Well, I put my brew on last saturday.

Over 2 days I gave it multiple shots of air and fermentation went gangbusters. By Tuesday there were no more signs of fermentation. I thought it had stalled out early, but to my surprise final gravity was 1.020.