Help me salvage a lager

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paulster2626

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You see, I had this house lager on tap that was bloody delicious. Brewed it in the winter using the cold room for lagering/fermenting. So in my infinite wisdom when this ran out about 6 weeks ago, I just brewed up another batch. Figured I'd be pushing the limits of the yeast with the basement at 62F, but what the hell. I'd just lager it in a keg in the keezer. No biggie.

Well, somehow the basement got way to hot, and the lid blew off the fermenter. I saw this within 24 hours of it happening and quickly moved it to a swamp cooler and rotated ice blocks for a week or so. The beer is now attenuated waaaaay down lower than I'd expect, and I'm guessing there's a whole lot of fusel alcohols kicking around there. ANyway, taste is what really matters, so I'm asking what to do here to save this. It tastes -okay-, but not as good as it should.

Should I:
-Rack to secondary and just leave it until, say, December?
-Rack to secondary on top of some kind of fruit, and leave it all bloody winter?
-Just lager it in a swamp cooler for 2 months and have September lager beer?

I will never do this again - next project is a fermentation chamber, but I'm holding out for a cheap used freezer. People seem to only want to sell these in the fall.
 
Chances are you will have some fruity flavors, likely bubblegummy. These don't fade very well. So that suggests a cover-up is needed. I'd be tempted to secondary it for a couple weeks, then give it a light dry hop (say 1 oz for 5-7 days) and then keg and lager it.
 
Well, popped 'er open on Sunday. Something was growing on top - a film of some sort. Racked to secondary on a can of peaches. The film stuck to the fermenter as it drained, so I think we're good.

This is now left to sit covered up for the next 6 months and forgotten. When I stumble over this in the winter I'll revive the thread as I know you're all just so excited to hear how it turns out.
 
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