urgent! Help me fix cold ale yeast in conical

So I recently bought a conical, and yesterday I filled her up, 15 gallons of beer....

Here is my problem, and I would really appreciate any help in how to proceed : My workshop where I ferment all my beers hovers at exactly 62 degrees. I have fermented all my batches in there with great success in five gallon glass carboys. So yesterday I brewed 15 gallons and pitched at 60 to give or take a few degrees rise during ferm....I pitched 3 packets of 1056 with a 3 L starter, og was about 14 plato..

During the night we experience some freak cold front and when I woke up the fermentor read 48 degrees. Its now been almost 40 with no sign whatsoever of fermentation. Temp has risen slightly to 52. No bubbles, no krausen, no nothing....

This thing weighs about a million pounds and so I can lift it up to move it to a warmer area and I can't warm the room.

What should I do?

- Keep waiting it out? a couple more days?
- pitch a few packets of saflager s-23?
- Dump it and brew a lager?

This is my first brew above 5 gallons and in a conical and I am completely perplexed on what to do and really would prefer to not waste $60+ worth of ingredients, but also don't want sh*$ beer or risk of an infection. Thank you obi wan, your my only hope

Wait it out.
All will be fine, it will start up again when the weather warms.
You can get a large heating pad and strap it to the fermenter if you want to but be careful not to warm it up too much. You could wrap it with a blanket as well.

I had a similar thing happen, although it was only a 6gal batch and it only dropped to 50. So not very similar I guess.

I decided to wait it out and see what would happen. After a 2 day lag, the yeast slowly got chugging and the thing fermented fine (the garage did warm up a few degrees, to about 54). I actually had to cool it down a little by day 5.

Do you have an electric blanket or some of those rice filled heat packs? I don't have a ferm-wrap so I have to make due, if needed. I used an electric blanket (on the lowest possible setting) to warm up a Belgian quad a few degrees. You could try just insulating it in general, so if any fermentation starts, the heat will be retained until you reach your desired temp.

I do (almost) anything I can to avoid dumping a beer...all that time and money. 60F is the low end for 1056, so even if you could get a few degrees warmer it would probably start up.

Good luck.

thanks. I've been trying like the devil to warm it up but no signs of anything yet. Its at a solid 55 and I think thats about as high as i can get it.

another idea i had was to rack it into two 5 gallon carboys and bring it inside but I'm not sure how the yeast would be allotted between them through the racking cane

bluelakebrewing said:

thanks. I've been trying like the devil to warm it up but no signs of anything yet. Its at a solid 55 and I think thats about as high as i can get it.

another idea i had was to rack it into two 5 gallon carboys and bring it inside but I'm not sure how the yeast would be allotted between them through the racking cane

Click to expand...

Buy a cheap electric space heater, and place it near it.

take something like this, stack it on top of some boxes or somethin so it's aiming at it from a cpl feet away, bring that sucker up to temp when you're home, hope for the best ^^

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TKDQ5C/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20