Enchanted Door Ale / Reusing Yeast

So on my next brew, I tried a little experiment (well, experiment for me at least!), in that I reused my yeast from the Hive Door 2. I had seen various articles in books, magazines, and online, about this practice, and decided to give it a shot. Many people that write about this, talk about it in regard to saving money (a vial of White Labs yeast is about $8.00), but I just figured it would be interesting to see what happened.

As my guide, I used a simple article from the last issue of Brew Your Own discussing the matter. 1) I took an empty Gatorade bottle (large plastic), cleaned and sanitized it. 2) After racking the Hive Door from the fermenter, I swirled up the yeast cake with a small amount of Hive Door still in the bottom of the fermenter and poured it into the Gatorade container. 3) Screwed the sanitized cap onto the container and put it into the refrigerator. Note: This could cause a CO2 problem if left for a while, so you want to unscrew cap occasionally to let pressure out. I was brewing again later that day, so I didnt worry too much about it (though I did make sure a few times).

Later that day, I brewed up a similar recipe to the Hive Door, with a number of changes (no honey, more sugar, added .5 Belgian Munich), this time shooting for a more traditional Tripel-style Belgian. On the crazy side, I went a bit whacky with the spices, adding small amounts of Chinese Five Spice, All Spice, Coriander, White & Black Pepper, Wormwood, Star Anise, Vanilla Extract, and Maple Syrup. Not sure what I was thinking. Just went with it. The Enchanted Door. The gravity came out to 1.074, which is my highest OG yet. 4) When starting the brew I took the Gatorade bottle of White Labs Trappist from the fridge and sat it down in the closet I ferment in (to let it temp change).

I whirlpooled in the bathtub to cool the wort down. Was able to get it down around 76 within 15 minutes, though I may have been a bit rough with it, causing some aeration (you really dont want to do this until after it is cooled down, not while, from what I understand). Oh well. I like to think that doing it this way really works/steeps the spices and hops into the wort before you strain into the fermenter. I should probably spin a bit slower in the future, but whatevs.

I filtered the wort back and forth from pot to fermenter, filtering it through a colander twice, aerating the hell out of it. Foam was almost to the lid of the fermenter. I moved it into the closet. Fermometer read 70/68 degrees. Perfect. 5) I then examined the Gatorade bottle of White Labs Trappist. There was some separation evident from where the beer was on top, yeast in the middle, and trub on the bottom. I dumped the layer of beer on top into the sink, and then pitched the rest into the fermenter! It was about half of a Gatorade bottle.

It seemed to take quickly (within 4 hours), pushing up the lid, slowly, but then a day later, WHAM: it went crazy, bubbling in the airlock. I think for this style of brew it was good to pitch so much yeast, however, 2 days in there were some sulfur smells that werent the most pleasant, however, they were gone within a day... The yeast fermented like mad for about a week and a half. Longest ferment I have had. It is pretty much done now, sitting at around 66 degrees, its main action was at around 68/70. My last hydrometer reading, 4 days ago, was 1.010 - 8.3% alcohol. Right in line for a Tripel. I am guessing it'll probably be around 8.5% final when I rack it, as it fermented for a few days more. I was glad to see that the yeast spit out a lot of the dark trub, crusted onto the upper sides of the fermenter, above the beer, so the beer isnt sitting on it now (well, not all of it anyway)... Will probably leave for a few more days, and after bottling Hive Door 2, will rack to secondary.

Tasted one of the readings, and it was crazy interesting. We'll see how it turns out... On New Year's Eve, we stopped by to see a friend for a bit, who generously opened and served us from a 50 oz (or so) bottle of Anchor Steam's Christmas Ale (which I am guessing was a gift from Anchor Steam to his place of work). After passing out a few more glasses, he then cleaned the huge bottle and gave it to me for homebrew! I am planning to fill it with Enchanted Door and let it age in the cellar for a bit, for the right occasion.

Here are a few links to some good articles about reusing yeast if you happened to stumble upon this randomly:
ARTICLE BY PRES OF WHITE LABS
FROM NORTHERN BREWER FORUM

Brewed on Sun, Dec 21
Racked on Thu, Jan 8
Oaked secondary on Jan 22
Bottled on Tue, Feb 3