Lager vs ale

[Gundi]

Brewed a brewers best oktoberfeast this weekend. It came with lager yeast but stated it could be fermented as an ale. I intended to lager it, but the challenge i have is the initial fermentation temp is 50 to 53 degrees. My basement is about 65 degrees which is in the ale temperature region. So my question is can i start the primary there and then move to a fridge for lagering? Will the temperature from stage one mess up the lagering or will it have an off taste. Wondering if anyone has run into this before. Thanks in advance.

 

[bad67z]

With your basement ambient temp @ 65 deg. your fermentation temp will be over 70 deg. due to the energy the yeast give off while producing alcohol, C02 and more yeast. This will be well out of the fermentation range for you lager yeast and may contribute characteristics that are not to style.

You could try the swamp cooler method to lower your temp. It consists of a container large enough for your fermenter and a few gallons of water and a t-shirt to cover and wick the water out. The wicking/evaporation process can take 10 deg. or more off of your fermenting temp. I have also read you can further enhance your temperature reduction buy adding frozen water bottles.

 

[Gundi]

Thats good advice. It has only been less than 48 hours so hopefully it will be ok. I will give that a try.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

I live in the desert and my a/c is set at 80F, I can get my fermenter down under 62F with the water tub and frozen bottles of water (a 2 liter and 1 liter bottle swapped out in the morning and when I get home from work) without even using the shirt or towel. You can easily get your temps in line with this method.