Safale 05 Fermenting 52-56 F

I am wondering if I will have any problems from fermenting too cold.

My last batch didn't chill quickly and fermented too hot. It ended up with a lot of fruity esters.

To fix this I took a large styrofoam box from work and fit my bucket into it. The bucket is sitting in a plastic container so I added some ice water abot 3 inches to keep it all cold. Now the whole thing has been between 52-56 degrees all day. I opened the lid of the cooler the let it heat up a bit. It is bubbling after about 15 hours.

I am going for a real light pale ale. Will it hurt it to be so cool? Since it is bubbling should I warm it a bit or try to maintain 56 degrees?

 

On the Jamil Show a while ago, he said that Sierra Nevada ferments a 'lager' using their ale yeast in the fifties, but the safale obviously might behave differently. If I were you I would pull it up to the upper 60s, as you might have a difficult time getting it to finish fermenting. Anything below 70 should prevent excessive esters. You could try fermenting an ale completely in the fifties, but use the pitching rate calculator at www.mrmalty.com and pitch the appropriate amount for a lager.

Also, excessive esters are bad, but part of the character of any ale is a little fruit ester.

 

According to their website, the minimum temp that this ferments at is 59F...

http://www.fermentis.com/FO/EN/pdf/SafaleUS05.pdf

...so I think you'd do better to warm it up a little. To get really nasty esters you'd need to be up in the 70s or higher, so fermenting in the low 60s would give a nice clean finish.

 

You'd be better with some Nottingham. This is from their site: "The recommended fermentation temperature range of this strain is 14° to 21°C (57° to 70°F) with good tolerance to low fermentation temperatures (12°C/54°F) that allow this strain to be used in lager-style beer."

 

I've done 05 down to near 50 and it is slower but it will work and give you a very clean beer.

 

I do many beers with US-05 that I start at 54 degrees. Once fermentation starts to slow a bit i raise the temp a degree or two a day until they finish out. No problems with that yeast at low temps.