Ale yeast Primary.. Lager yeast Secondary..

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Kplum

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This is something I have wanted to do for awhile.. I composed one of my favorite beer recipe (that is an ale.) And I pitched an ale yeast in my primary.. I kept the temp at around 58-60 degrees.. Needless to say the fermentaion was not vigorous and didnt last very long.. Today I pitched some lager yeast in the secondary when i transfered the beer over.. Its sitting at 52 degrees and started fermenting right away..

I was thinking of doing something like this to an OktoberFast recipe.
Throwing some ale yeast in at about 62-64 degrees, then try and lager it with some lager yeast in the secondary..

has anyone tried this before?
if so, what were your results..
 
The lager yeast wouldn't do anything as the ale yeast would have fermented all the available sugars by the time you pitch the lage yeast. Not sure what would be accoplished by doing this.
 
The lager yeast wouldn't do anything as the ale yeast would have fermented all the available sugars by the time you pitch the lage yeast. Not sure what would be accoplished by doing this.

Just an expierment to see what exactly would happen..
You can control the ale yeast, you dont have to let it ferment all of the available sugars.. Then you let the lager yeast clean up a bit..
 
The ale yeast produces most of its esters in the first couple days of fermentation. You would end up with an estery "lager". And when you "lager" a beer you are aging the beer at near freezing temps. I would try a yeast like an alt yeast or a Cal Common yeast.
 
And also, you would end up with TONS of diacetyl. Secondary fermentation is a misnomer. There really is no such thing as secondary fermentation. You pitch yeast and when it is done fermenting, the beer can be tranferred for conditioning or kegging. You would not be able to control the ale yeast because if there were still sugars available the yeast would remain in suspension. You would have to filter them out.
 
...You would not be able to control the ale yeast because if there were still sugars available the yeast would remain in suspension. You would have to filter them out.

Wouldn't dropping the temperature of the beer well below the fermentation temperature range of the ale yeast cause them to drop out of suspension (regardless of sugar content of beer)?
 
Wouldn't dropping the temperature of the beer well below the fermentation temperature range of the ale yeast cause them to drop out of suspension (regardless of sugar content of beer)?

Depending on altitude, yeast type, gravity, barometric pressure, and wort content.... maybe?
 
The ale yeast produces most of its esters in the first couple days of fermentation.

Perfect.. The ale yeast didnt make it past 20 hours.. So there may/may not be esters enough to get the "estery" lager.. We will just see what happens..

I was curious if anyone had done something similiar. That for me is what is fun and exciting about brewing so much you can do to improvise, what if it works and taste great..

Instead of thinking why you cannot do something, try it and see what happens..
 
I did the opposite once, pitched a lager yeast and a 2 days later pitched an ale yeast assuming the lager wasn't working... Thank god for this forum!
 
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