Hey All, So I know I should probably just relax and have a home brew, but I was wondering what others experience was on reusing brett yeast cakes. This past Saturday I re-brewed my 100% brett "saison" recipe and pitched it on top of the yeast cake of my previous batch I brewed about 6+ months ago (and bottled the day before). However, now about 36 hours in I don't see any fermentation activity. Is this typical? Should I be worried about the viability of the yeast cake? Or should I chalk it up to lag time? I worry because last time I used this method, I re-used half of my yeast cake to ferment the batch of wort and split off half to maintain in a yeast starter. Luckily, the beer I brewed took off and fermented well, but the portion I pulled off for a yeast started never took off and I had to dump it.. Does anyone have a proven method to preserve their brett cultures (mine is a mix of brett strains that I've collected and mixed over time)? Cheers!
Brettanomyces sp. grow MUCH more slowly than do sacch. cerevisiae strains, so that might explain your extended log phase. Brett also tends to survive for longer than sacch. does, but if your Brett was at the bottom of a fermenter for 6 months, you should have made a starter for it to get it active before pitching.
I actually did make a small "starter" with it, but it was less than optimal. In order to clean the carboy the day before I put the yeast slurry into a sanitized growler with some low gravity wort. However, I figure 24 hours was way too little time to really get any benefit. But thanks for the advice, next time I'll be sure to give it a bit more time to activate.
Brett has a long lag phase and grows much slower than sacch. I wouldn't be too worried about it. Brett also prefers warmer temps. What temp are you fermenting at?
I have it sitting at room temp, low 70's, in hopes to encourage a bit of a faster start. Once it takes off, I'll probably return it to basement temps (mid-upper 60's) as last time that was where I fermented at and got some really nice fruity character out of the strains. No obvious fermentation this morning again, but the reassurance helps.
Just wanted to update the thread with my results. Fermentation started sluggishly on day 5 after moving it to a slightly warmer room (mid to upper 70s, depending on strength on the morning sun). After a day, I put it back in the basement to ferment (in the upper 60's) and it has been chugging along ever since. By far the longest brett lag that I've had. Next time I will definitely make a starter in advance. I thought the pitch rate would compensate, but apparently not.
If it was a cake that just got done fermenting, it would have taken off immediately. As it was one that was 6 months removed from fermenting, it did not.
