a beginer's question about lagering

[troberts289]

I just bought a starter equipment kit for my first batch of home brew. I also bought an ingredient kit from Brewer's Best to get started with. I bought the German Oktoberfest kit, which I'm seeing now tah I opened it is a little complicated for a first batch. Anyway the instructions say that if you don't have the equipment to to lager your beer you can brew it as an ale between 64-72* F, which I could easily do in my basement. If you do it as a lager it says to start at 53-59 for fist fermentation, and then lower the temperature a degree a day until you get to 35-42 (a temperature I could easily do if I cleared a space in my fridge, but I couldn't start in up in the 50's and lower in a degree a day, I need somewhere to keep my food). Anyway, I have two questions: First what would be the difference as far as taste goes between these 2 methods? I'm sure this kit didn't come with the best yeasts, would it even be something a beginner like me would notice? Secondly would I be doing a dumb thing be starting the first fermentation in my basement, and then doing the second in my fridge without lowering the temp a degree a day, and again would I even notice a difference? Thanks for the advice, I'm really looking forward to getting into this hobby. I've gotten really sick of waiting till October for the commercial breweries to make an Oktoberfest.

 

[killian]

what temp is your basement?

 

[mojotele]

Well, what you are essentially making is a Steam Beer if you ferment at room temperatures, but it will not be anything like Anchor Steam unless you use California Common yeast. The difference in flavor will depend on the yeast. If you fermented low, like you should for a lager, you basically won't have any flavor from the yeast. If you ferment at room temperature, you may have some to a lot of flavors from the yeast. You will probably notice if you're familiar with the style. That doesn't mean it will turn out bad, though.

 

[nebben]

Lager yeasts will produce more fruity esters at warmer fermentation temperatures. Can you identify who made the yeast in the kit? If it says it can be made as a lager or an ale, then it's probably true- just that one of the two will be less than ideal. You can get a warm fermenting lager yeast such as White Labs WLP810 (San Fransisco Lager), WLP862 (Cry Havoc), and a few others from Wyeast too.