Fermentation Container; Large Black Trash Bin

[Mr.Moonshine]

Infinitee,
I beleive part of the reasoning behind only pitching into darker and darker brews is that you taint both the colour and flavour of the beer if you pitch a particuarly light beer onto the yeast cake of a much darker one. For instance, if you were to pitch a light cream ale ontop of a US-05 yeast cake which had just fermented a stout, you'd get too dark a colour and the contribution of roasty flavours and extra hop bitterness, etc.etc. You also have to keep in mind that yeast is a living organism which mutates over time, and the way the yeast adapt to a darker, roastier hoppier brew may not yeild good results in a lighter brew.
Also, it's important that you don't reuse the yeast cake from a high alcohol/very hoppy beer, as these factors stress yeast quite a bit, therefore affecting the next brew you might pitch into.

 

[Infinitee]

Thank you MrMoonshine. Very straightforward answer.

The colour I completely understand. But how a few hundred ml's of flavoured-yeast affects the result of a 20L light brew, is a bit beyond me.
I can't help suspecting a bit of psychosomatism.

Stressing the yeast (while threatening it's lifespan admittedly) is also a way of enticing different flavours out of it (ethyl esters) so I read.
So while it's a bit of russian roulette, it may not necessarily result in a failure, right?

[By the by, the garbage-bin with a single yeast sachet (no malt either), has started cranking along today ... nothing like watching a bulk-ferment mature like this ... it's like investing in microsoft in the late 80's] ^_^

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

You're right to say that the stressing of the yeast can result in diffrent flavour development, only some types of yeast will benefit from this. For instance if you stress out a belgian style yeast you get alot of diffrent esters and phenols which are apart of the style (From what I understand a higher temp ferment is one of the only ways to get a banana/bubblegum presence from a belgian witbier yeast). Depends on the yeast.
And yes, you can have the yeast mutate into something better. About a year ago I was doing alot of yeast repitching, and the yeast started to ferment out faster and faster, until I was turning over ferments every 4-5 days with a decent clean flavour. All kinda luck of the draw I suppose

Cheers

Mr.Moonshine

 

[Infinitee]

Thanks Mr. M.

It's amazing what is stressed out of organisms doing it hard.
I was certainly amazed the first Grolsh I ever had ... was looking for the bubblegum stuck to the cap by a lazy brewer.
Nice for a throw down, not what I'd want to drink all night/every night unlike my homebrew.
Lovely promotional bottles but (when you can find em).

I would normally pitch yeast in accordance to volume. But no local HBS and the fact coles mysteriously stopped stocking brigalow's yeast overnight has left me up shite creek. Time to buy a few functional yeasts and perpetuate their propagation, methinks.

I find the duration of ferments near impossible to pin down .. some going off their rockers, others slower than a snail - and temperature certainly doesn't seem to be the only variable.
Repitching yeast/lacto-bacteria sourdough breads into homebrews has produced interesting results.
Not least because of the dark rich flavour of my rye-rich ryebread.

Again, I say thanks Mr. Moonshine! ^_^