Lager mishap

Hi all,

Think I may have a batch to dump. I tried to brew my first lager. Had a fermenting bucket in a fridge in the garage for a week and was able to maintain 52 degrees. Thought I was good to go. Brewed 2 days ago, pitched at 60 degrees, put it in the fridge and woke up the next day with a reading of 46 degrees. It took all day yesterday and today to slowly raise the temp to 53, but no sign of activity. All the ales I've brewed ( 5 of them, either extract of partial) would be going crazy by now.
Anyways, I'm bottling a American Cream Ale tonight, and am wondering if I should just rack the lager on top of the ale yeast cake? All I'm trying to do now is save the batch right now. I don't know how long should I wait to see if the lager is going to start before I repitch with the ale, and how long will the ale yeast be viable? Thanks for any help.

Lager fermentations are normally not as active as ale. Use a hydrometer to confirm whether there really is a lack of fermentation. 46F is definitely not enough to kill yeast. Actually, there is a lager fermentation scheme called Narziss that starts off about that low and gradually raises the temp to proper fermentation temp (the idea being to totally avoid diacetyl). Don't give up yet!

+1 to the last post. My last lager didn't start active fermentation until the end of Day 3, and even then, it took a full 8 days to get to 75% FG and my D-rest, so just be patient with it.

What's your plan to actually lager the beer at 34-38F once it's time?

OG is still the same, 1.051, it's a Brewers Best Munich Helles kit. I was just going to follow the directions, it said to ferment at 53-59 F, then lager at 35-42. Just wasn't planning for the drop in temp.

personally, I don't think 2 days gets you into panic mode. Keep it at 53 or so for a week and then check back would be my choice.