troberts289
New Member
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.