Which should I do?

[uwmgdman]

I'll be brewing a SNCA clone tomorrow. I will be reusing the yeast cake (1056) in my primary. There is a pale ale in there now and I will transfer tomorrow when the wort is cooling.

EDIT: And what I mean by 'dump 1/2 the cake and pitch on that' is, dump 1/2 the trub/yeast cake out and add the wort to the primary with the remaining 1/2 of yeast/trub cake.

 

[Evan!]

As long as everything is kept sanitary, don't dump anything. Just pitch directly onto the whole cake. Attempting to "dump" a portion of the yeast cake is just an opportunity for contamination that is unnecessary. Keep the airlock on it and keep it sealed and sanitary until it's time to rack the wort into it. I did this with a hefe recently, and it turned out really really good. You'll be surprised at how short lag time is. Mine was 45 minutes. I didn't even have time to finish aeration before krausen had formed.

 

[Orfy]

I just dumped on a full yeast cake (sounds rude) it let loose in <45 minutes fermented out in <12hrs.
I'm thinking maybe that's too fast.

 

[uwmgdman]

My only concern about dumping on the full yeast cake is a very fast ferment that raises the temperature of fermenting beer to much too high of a temperture. I've talked with david42 and he said he usual pours some out after one time having an ale go off in hurry and in the process hit an unpleasant 89F!

 

[user 574]

I said Nader but as long as you're fermenting in a lower temp environment; 66-68 or so it won't creap beyond 72-76 I'd suspect. The blowoff is more at risk IMO with the full yeast cake.

Or, you could dump half out but wash, save some for another day and toss the other batch on the remaining half.

As for orfy and the 12h ferment. I've gotten that as well and have not had ill effects from this rapid (or rabid) of a ferment. Just get it out of there in two days and off to the secondary.

 

[LarMoeCur]

unless you have dry hopped or something crazy in the Pale just dump her on top.

 

[dougjones31]

I agree with the concerns of overpitching and fast ferments. Heat builds up and unless you are equiped to handle the heat, you should not overpitch.

That being said......I doubt that pitching on top of a fresh yeast cake is going to be overkill. If you made a 2 quart starter, then I would expect problems. But the cake from a simple 5 gallon batch is not going to be too much for the next 5 gallon batch.