If the yeast is still relatively fresh, you bet your ass I would. It saves a lot of time. Just add a bit of yeast nutrient to your big batch of wort and let `er rip.
I would, but I wouldn't used the entire cake, myself. I would use a calculator and some educated guess work, and pitch an amount of slurry from the cake. If you end up needing a really large pitch and it's a couple generations old, sure, I wouldn't have much issue with pitching on the cake alone. FWIW, I'm sure you'd be fine to pitch onto the cake with no real huge issues. I've done it for a cake of yeast for an IPA and then a huge DIPA.
Well, if you had success with an ale, then a lager should be fine. You need more yeast for a lager, and probably overpitched with the ale.
I'm planning on doing it next weekend. Granted not for a lager, an ale. I don't know if that makes a difference. Maybe lagering strains the yeast, I don't know. I'm kegging a 80 Shillings and racking a Wee Heavy right on top of the yeast cake.
Doing it this weekend . Made a Brett Trois blond/pale (OG ~1.054) and I'm doing the Double Sunshine clone (except using the wlp644). THe blonde ale tastes amazing out of the fermentor so I have huge expectations for the DIPA.
Keep in mind that you'll need to have a way to control your fermentation temp-it's gonna take off when that fresh wort hits that big pile of yeast. I chill my ale wort to around 58F and set my controller to 61F for the first day or 2, then daily ramp it up to 63F.
You still have no yeast fall from suspension during lagering, creating albeit a smaller yeast cake comparatively to the amount that builds during primary, still a yeast cake?
Well, okay, yes. But nobody would try to pitch a new batch on that yeast cake. More like a yeast dusting.
And, for the most part, pitching onto the yeast dust that falls out during the lagering phase would also select the less flocculant cells. The batch fermented on them could potentially have issues with clearing properly, especially if you continue that pattern.
Just to be clear... I wasn't saying that you can't re-use a yeast cake from a lager fermentation. I was saying that after fermentation, the beer is normally removed from the yeast cake before lagering (cold storage), and that the yeast that settle out during lagering wouldn't be very plentiful.
But there's no reason at all to not re-use your lager yeast cake like an ale. I was talking to a commercial brewer this summer and he re-uses his lager cake 6-8 times before starting with fresh yeast.But he carefully monitors it to make sure it's not mutating to something that won't make his beer taste right.
this makes sense. I believe the term "lager batch" as used by the OP is simply referring to the strain of yeast and not necessarily the actual process of lagering. in other words, transfer the beer into the secondary for lagering and the yeast cake is left behind in the primary is good to go for another brew. I would not bother to add any wort onto a yeast cake after lagering is completed. I think that is what the OP is trying to figure out. Cheers.
To the OP. I have pitched onto a yeast cake in the primary of a previous lager. I did this for a pils last winter; it was perhaps my best pils ever.
