67 degree Fermentation

My first brew in quite a while. i want to ferment in my basement. Pretty consistantly 67 to 68 degrees down there. I am making an American Pale Ale and using White Labs California Ale yeast. Is this too cold?

In the winter, the basement gets down to 63 degrees or so. Is that too cold for an Ale yeast like the one above or for Wyeast American 1056?

67-68 should be ideal, 63 might be a bit cold for an ale. Check the specs for the yeast, it should list the temp range somewhere.

And it's easy to warm a fermenter a few degrees. Sometimes all it takes is a blanket.

david_42 said:

And it's easy to warm a fermenter a few degrees. Sometimes all it takes is a blanket.

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very good idea!

So, in the fall when the temp in the basement starts to drop to 65ish degrees, I can wrap a towel around the fermenter and then an old comforter around that and it may hold the temp at 68ish? Sounds like a plan

In the winter when temps drop to 62 degrees and even 60 degrees in a back room, maybe I'll try to replicate Anchor Steam Beer with White Labs San Francisco Lager yeast.

Does anyone have a good recipe for this? Including how long to keep in primary and secondary and how it does with Bottle conditioning?

BYO has both an all-grain and an extract with grain recipe for an Anchor Steam clone in their '150 Classic Clone Recipes' issue. Either buy the back issue from them (it's worth it) or I can post one of the recipes for you.

I am getting close to bottling Jamil Zainasheff's all grain California Common recipe.

Here are links to both the Extract and All Grain recipes.

Consider yourself fortunate to have a place with those temps. Even at 62 ambient the core of your fermentation vessle may be as high as 70 due to yeast metabolic activity.

Brewed yesterday (4 year hiatus). I'm back in the saddle. Very easy brew session, my first time with a propane cooker. That made a BIG difference and was much better than my stove top. THe challenge of course was my 3 year old and 7 month old. First time I've brewed with them. Those of you with kids know what I mean.

PItched yeast at 3:30PM and was bubbling this morning at 6:30, so it started in the middle of the night. Perfect!!!!!!!

I took the advice I got here and wrapped the fermentor in a comforter. Temp inside the comforter this morning was 70 degrees. Thanks for the great advice.

I brewed with my 2.9 year old Saturday. She was really curious about what was going on, just had to keep her from trying to climb in my primary bucket and taking my brew spoon!!!