Call me a brew virgin

[thebuddrik]

Call me a brew virgin but I brewed my highest gravity beer yesterday, a IIPA and ended up with 1.082. I had planed it out that I was going to rack an American Pale Ale to secondary and put this on top of the yeast cake. When I put in a few gallons I shook the hell out of it then put the rest. Whenever I put it n my fermentation fridge I could see the cold break moving around in there (this is the first time I used only carboy and not a bucket) and figured it was only because I had shook it all up. I started cleaning up and after 10 or 15 minutes I opened the fridge to cover up my heat lamp and there was bubbles coming from the jug of starsan. I thought that the Pale had started going at it again, I mean it was too soon for the IIPA. I was wrong, that IIPA was going crazy! I looked at the carboy and it looked like there was a five pound bass swimming around in there, churning around an everything. I guess it always looks like that but I had no clue. And as far as it starting off as fast as that I guess with enough yeast anything is possible!

[yeastmeister]

Yep, thats what it always looks like when its at full activity. Mesmerizing isn't it? Thats normal behavior for repitching onto a cake. Basically, when you pitch a normal starter, you still have yeast growth going on, the beasties come from an o2 rich environment, so they grow till the o2 is gone, then they switch to eating mode. The yeasties in the cake were already in eating mode, and not in growing mode. You just dumped a huge buffet table full of food in front of a starving army.

[redtail28]

Bet your house smells good

[aleguy]

I hope you didn't overpitch. But if the yeastmeister didn't say anything, you're probably okay. Welcome to the wonderful world of fermentation.

[yeastmeister]

My general thoughts on overpitching is that there is no such thing when we are talking imperial styles. Any time your shooting for 10% or higher, I recommend pitching onto a prior cake.