Lager an India Pale Ale? :0

I have and IPA recipe that I am planning on brewing but this weekend, I built a fridge/fermentation chamber that holds 52* perfectly:

www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/converted-fridge-fermentation-chamber-questions-79561

Since I dont have a temperature controller yet, and my house is like 75 usually (first brew in new apartment), I would like to lager, but I bought all the stuff for an IPA. (I'm not at home right now but it was about 6 lbs Light DME, 3 Lbs amber DME and 1 lb specialty grain. it has 4 oz of hops) If I just switch out the yeast for a lager yeast will that work? If not, what can I do? Thanks in advance!

You'd probably be better off getting the fermentation chamber to work at ale temps, especially for an IPA.

wildwest450 said:

You'd probably be better off getting the fermentation chamber to work at ale temps, especially for an IPA.

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That would be ideal for me but I can't get a temp controller by tomorrow and I have a brewer friend that is coming over so I can't really wait. If I can, I'd like to "convert" this recipe if I can.

What yeast are you using? Notties will go down to 59F I believe. If your lagering, do you have a starter made?

Well, i was going to switch the yeast to lager yeast. I think it was an American Ale but dont remember exactly as it was recommended by my LHBS and I had not used it before, (i'll post when I get home) but I know it wasn't a nottie. I was planning on dry yeast so I wasnt going to make a starter ( i know, i know, sorry... )

UPDATE: Just remembered, it was Safale US-05

Theoretically, what would be the possible detrimental effects of lagering an IPA with lager yeast?

Wrathbone said:

Theoretically, what would be the possible detrimental effects of lagering an IPA with lager yeast?

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I guess that's really what I'm asking.

Ipa....ipa Ipa Ipa

Also, I guess it would no longer be an IPA as much as an IPL....

I am aware that it is no longer an IPA... I just wanted to know if there was a lager yeast that would compliment those ingredients well. I chose to use white labs San Fransisco Lager yeast which i will store at 53* for fermentation. Since I thought I was using dry ale yeast, I just made a starter that will be going for 24 hours by the time that I brew. I hope that's enough.

Wrathbone said:

Theoretically, what would be the possible detrimental effects of lagering an IPA with lager yeast?

Click to expand...

I've never lagered, so the following is pure speculation, but: thinking out loud about this question, as far as I know no-one lagers IPAs, and given the random sh!te I've seen served up as beer, I assume there must be a reason for that. I can't imagine using lager yeast would make the beer taste bad, so I'd guess the reason people don't do it is because it's unnecessary, or doesn't yield anything to make the extra effort worthwhile. Lager yeast is supposed to give a very clean flavor profile, so with an IPA I would imagine the extra alcohol and hoppiness would drown out anything the yeast might do. Even with an ale yeast such as US-05 there's little contribution from the yeast. So my guessed answer to the question would be that there's nothing wrong with lagering an IPA with lager yeast, but that you could achieve the same end product with much less hassle by using ale yeast.

Actually, given that hop characteristics in beer fade over time, it may be slightly worse using a lager yeast, as during the extra time fermentation and conditioning would take, the beer would lose some of its hoppiness. This probably wouldn't be dramatic, and I bet the beer would still be good, but perhaps it's better practice to go with an ale yeast.

But I think you should go for it and tell us how it turns out.

Go ahead and use the California Lager yeast, and set your fridge as warm as you can get it. I think it will be really good with that strain, which accentuates the hops well in Anchor Steam. Pitch at least a 2L starter.

I would worry about using a true lager yeast on an IPA. IPAs are supposed to be very malty to balance against the hops, lager yeasts can ferment more types of sugar than ale yeast including some of the longer chain sugars that contribute to the body you would want from and IPA. but the beauty of homebrewing is being able to make anything you can imagine so whatever you make post the recipe and let everyone know how it turns out.

Definitely keep us posted on the process you use as well as the results.

If you can't get below 52, then you can't lager either. You need to get as close to 32 as possible for the actual lagering part. I think the San Fran yeast may work nicely.

But as for the recipe and yeast. I have made an "IPL", it came out great. Used a regular IPA recipe, and used the regular popular German/Bohemian lager strain to ferment.

Just as a bit of an update, my brew partner is getting here soon and we'll discuss what we want to do. I can go down to 32 if i want, the problem originally was that my apartment was real warm, so my only choices would have been to use my fridge/fermentation chamber at anywhere from 32* to 53* or my room at 76. factoring everything in, i may just ale for a few reasons:

- Right now i am actually out of homebrew. lagering would delay that even more.
- I have never lagered before so i think it'll be more educational for me if I did a real lager, not some convoluted IPL.
- I don't have a big enough starter yet because i dont have a sutable bottle/container to do it in.

So i'm going to harvest and wash the lager yeast from the starter and make a real lager with it in 2 or 3 weeks and pitch the dry US-05 I have and keep it cool as well as i can.

Thanks for all the input though and i'll tell y'all how it turns out!

how did this beer turn out? I'm doing it tommorow!

I know this is all after the fact, but there are a few things you can/could have done in this situation. This of course presumes that you really did want to use an ale yeast, but were concerned with the temp.

The first thing that comes to mind is putting your fridge on a timer. It would be a lot of trial and error at first, but you could try 15 minutes on per hour to start. One of those push button timers is about $10. Fridges are designed to hold temps so once you get the beer in the zone it'll stay there pretty well.

Second, if you have a cooler (or anything big enough to put the carboy in) laying around you can use a water bath. the entire carboy doesn't need to be submerged (though it helps). Evaporation will keep the water cooler then the air temp and you can regulate your temps very easily with ice, ice packs, or frozen water bottles. I use a couple Igloo "Ice cube" coolers from walmart to do most of my ale ferments.

Third, you can wrap the carboy in wet towels. again, the evaporation will help the towel stay below air temp.

So how's the beer taste so far? What temperature do you think it fermented at?

Again, after the fact but related: I recently did this myself, for no real reason at all. I just wanted to try it, and I don't really care if it's unconventional. I have a 3-gallon carboy that fits in my refrigerator. I formulated a 2.5 gallon batch within the Imperial IPA style guidelines with BeerSmith, and whipped it up using two 11.5g packs of Saflager S-23 for my yeast, as MrMalty suggested. It's currently fermenting at about 50*F in the fridge, and I have no idea what it will taste like, but I'm d@mned excited to find out. Good luck with yours if you decide to lager it!

I've had an India Pale Lager before. I think it was from The Bruery, but I'm not 100% on that. It was super good. Much more 'crisp' than an ale version.