Yeast that does well with basement temps 60-65ish

G'morning guys.

Having just moved into my house in January, I now have a full basement to store stuff in. It's unfinished, with no AC vents. In the past few months that I have lived there, the temps seem to stay at around 60-63 degrees or so. I'm not sure what to expect this summer yet.

I have a chest freezer with temp control I normally use, but am limited to two batches while they ferment out. If needed, I also have a large 10 gallon ceramic pickling crock that I can submerge a carboy in with a aquarium heater so that gives me maybe one more option for a third batch.

Preferably though, I would like to be able to just store a primary or three on a shelf in the basement without the hassle of waterbaths etc and let them do their thing to free up my freezer to do other lagers and such.

Is there any favorite yeast strains that does well with those temps? My idea is to get a few long term beers going that I can let sit there for a while to age out. I've noticed the last few batches that I've done, the basement is only a few degrees cooler than the 67* I normally set my controller to.

I don't typically brew big beers and generally keep them at 1.060 or below.

Do ya'll think it's safe to brew a few up, sit them on a shelf and let'em do their thing?

While Nottingham or US-05 will work well with these temperatures the ambient conditions really don't give a good indication of what the actual fermentation temperature is. Typically 3*F to as high as 10*F higher. I would do a test batch first and see how the temperature of the beer runs along with the ambient temperature to get a feel for what to expect. Tape a temperature probe with a little insulation covering it to the side of your fermentation vessel and monitor the results.

US-05 for American PAs and IPAs, Notty for English ales and use a heater for Belgians. However, in Alabama I suspect you're going to find appreciably higher temps in summer, even in the basement.

bigken462 said:

Do ya'll think it's safe to brew a few up, sit them on a shelf and let'em do their thing?

Click to expand...

you can, but I wouldn't expect the type of results that you get from active temperature control.

Here is a crazy idea, why not upgrade your chest freezer to a larger size? Then you can do ales and lager concurrently, however you want them.

Basements temps are probably fine if they stay where you say they are, but I suspect the temps will be a bit higher in Alabama in the summer.

Most ale yeast will be ok at that temp, and if necessary you can ferment most of the way down there, and then bring upstairs to finish near the end.

I'm going to guess that you will find the ambient temp is going to be high enough in the summer to make the fermentation temp higher than you would prefer. If you have the room, it may be smart to sell your old fermentation chamber and upgrade in size. Or maybe get a second chamber so you can vary the temps. Maybe ferment Lagers in one if you feel like it.

Thanks for the response. I do need a second freezer, but there is always the other "stuff" that gets in the way. Nicer brew pots, pumps, kegs and then those friggen bills the mailman seems to love to harass you with.

Trying to get a few in reserve so that when I lager, I won't feel the pinch when the freezer is tied up. Back to searching Craigs List. Soon I will try my first Hef and maybe a Saison to ferment upstairs.

Before I moved, I had to deal with the worry of realtors bringing strangers in my house or the house selling in the middle of the batch. This is the first time I've had unrestricted brewing w/o worry in about 2 years. It's friggen awesome!

That's what temp my basement is. If my chest freezer is full, I use my basement. I chill to 60, pitch and forget with a cal ale strain.

So far I've had good luck with Wyeast Kolsch 2565. It's a good low-floc, medium-attenuation strain that's useful for moderate abv beers. It seems to like the lower end of the 60s for a temperature. My cellar is around 55 most of the winter, and it's performed nicely there.
https://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=144

If you're looking for clearer, brighter, higher attenuation beers, Saflager S-23 (dry yeast) is optimal around 45 degrees, but is really versatile, so much so that it performs well with few off-flavors all the way up to around 70 degrees.
http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFG_S23.pdf

Mainer said:

So far I've had good luck with Wyeast Kolsch 2565. It's a good low-floc, medium-attenuation strain that's useful for moderate abv beers. It seems to like the lower end of the 60s for a temperature. My cellar is around 55 most of the winter, and it's performed nicely there.
https://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=144

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On a similar note to this one, Wyeast's German Ale Yeast 1007 works fairly similarly. I like to use it on faux-lagers. It ferments pretty clean even up into the mid 60s. My basement averages 58F in the winter and 63-65F in the summer so I'm in a similar boat as OP.