So, I made the imperial stout, OG of around 1080, and wondered if I could easily use the cake to make a barleywine. My main concern is flavor, since I don’t really want a coffee, chocolate or roasted flavor in my BW. Will this flavor carry over in the yeast or will it be fine?
Brewer’s lore would say to not use a yeast from that high of a alcohol content beer on a new batch.
What yeast is it?
[quote=“threehearted”] since I don’t really want a coffee, chocolate or roasted flavor in my BW. Will this flavor carry over in the yeast or will it be fine?[/quote] I think you might have answered your own question. IMO, you would taste some of stout in the BW. Since you don’t want those flavors in there, then why risk it? It might add some interesting complexity to the BW, but since you specifically stated you didn’t want those flavors in the BW, why take the risk?
Plus I have to agree with the other poster. You shouldn’t re-use yeast from a high gravity batch. I would recommend making a nice english Pale ale or bitter and use that yeast cake instead.
I’d use it.
I would too.
In fact, I have done similar…quite frequently, actually.
And there was no undesirable flavor carry-over or diminished yeast performance any time I’ve done so.
Nighthawk:
It was 1098 already used on a low-grav beer and recycled. I used it all on the stout because I didn’t want it sitting in the fridge for 6 weeks…
The reason brewers don’t reuse yeast that was on a high gravity beer is that it may be stressed with the amount of alcohol. Your 1098 is tolerant to 10% so it still may be OK. I would not worry so much about carrying over any of the chocolate taste if you removed most of the liquid and with the high hops in a BW.
I would also use it. Could always make a gallon starter with it to make sure first.
You might be OK, but I would want to be 100% comfortable with the health of my yeast for a barleywine, and I’m not sure recycling after a RIS would give me that level of comfort. At the very least, I’d make a starter. Even better would be to brew a batch of something fairly small as a starter (like a mild, southern brown, etc). This way you could taste whether the yeast was too stressed from the RIS before deciding to use it on a BW.
