Brew an ale with lager yeast?

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Scooterkdavis

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my brewing buddy, who only buys kits, bought a kit and i think he got the wrong yeast. He went to a lesser brew shop and got a cream ale kit; i dont know the specifics of the recipe because the kits dont list them but it was about 1.5 lbs of a light grain, 7 lbs of pale malt extract, 1 oz unknown boiling hops, .75 oz of 15 min hops. Anyways without a recipe i cant be sure but he said the brewmaster there gave him a WPL 810(i think) the San Fransisco lager yeast. I have never brewed a lager, and my question is should i just treat this as a week in primary at 65 degrees, two week in secondary, ect. like the rest of my ales, or should i do something different with this yeast strand ????
 
my brewing buddy, who only buys kits, bought a kit and i think he got the wrong yeast. He went to a lesser brew shop and got a cream ale kit; i dont know the specifics of the recipe because the kits dont list them but it was about 1.5 lbs of a light grain, 7 lbs of pale malt extract, 1 oz unknown boiling hops, .75 oz of 15 min hops. Anyways without a recipe i cant be sure but he said the brewmaster there gave him a WPL 810(i think) the San Fransisco lager yeast. I have never brewed a lager, and my question is should i just treat this as a week in primary at 65 degrees, two week in secondary, ect. like the rest of my ales, or should i do something different with this yeast strand ????



little pushy aren't we??:D

if they gave you 810 sfl i wouldn't ferment it over 60 personally, that being said it is a steam beer yeast and white labs site says up to 65 for fermentation White Labs
 
thats what o figured about the temp, but my question is more to the timing of everything, ive never brewed a lager, but I recall it is a lot longer aging process to clean the beer. could a lager yeast funtion at a 1 week 2 week schedual?

sorry about being pushy we had to drink a case of heff's to have enough bottles to bottle tonight, bad timing(or shoping)



red wings????
GO AVS!!!!!
 
sawright man, no you need give it longer in primary and secondary. lager yeast work slower and need more time to clean up the fusel alcohols from early fermentation.
 
I am using that yeast as I type. I fermented it at 62 for a week I am in a diacetyl rest now @ 68 for 2 days and will transfer,and crash cool in secondary tomorrow afternoon.
I will leave this here for about 4 weeks @ 38 deg then keg. I have never used this yeast before. This is just what I am doing ;)
jj
 
my brewing buddy, who only buys kits, bought a kit and i think he got the wrong yeast. He went to a lesser brew shop and got a cream ale kit; i dont know the specifics of the recipe because the kits dont list them but it was about 1.5 lbs of a light grain, 7 lbs of pale malt extract, 1 oz unknown boiling hops, .75 oz of 15 min hops. Anyways without a recipe i cant be sure but he said the brewmaster there gave him a WPL 810(i think) the San Fransisco lager yeast. I have never brewed a lager, and my question is should i just treat this as a week in primary at 65 degrees, two week in secondary, ect. like the rest of my ales, or should i do something different with this yeast strand ????

WLP810 is the Anchor Steam yeast -- it is designed to ferment at low ale temperatures, just like Anchor Steam beer. The style is called California Common because Anchor trademarked the "steam" designation, but the idea is the same -- lager made at ale temperatures. Pitch a big starter into cool wort. Try to ferment at 62º and let it go for at least two weeks, preferably three, in the primary. If those hops are Northern Brewer and the steeping grains are a mid-range crystal, some biscuit and chocolate malt, you'll have something fairly close to Jamil Zainasheff's Anchor clone recipe. If not, a Cream Ale is, like California Common, a hybrid, i.e. either an ale treated like a lager or a lager treated like an ale, so it should be a clean, crisp beer with light fruity notes from the yeast. Sounds pretty good to me.

Chad
 
Cream ales are often brewed with lager yeasts or even a mix of lager and ale yeasts, so this was probably not a mistake. I am doing a Cali Common right now with that very same yeast and fermented in the low 60s and it tastes great. I pulled the sample after a week and got just a hint of diacetyl, so I warmed it up to 68 for a day or so, I am going to put it in the fridge tomorrow to cold crash then cold condition it for 2-4 weeks.

Do know that lager yeast are a little more finicky than ales strains. So you will need to do a big starter for that beer to keep the off flavors in check. Either that or go grab a vial of the California ale yeast and pitch them both to have a true hybrid cream ale!
 
Just treat the SF Lager yeast like an ale yeast. That yeast does well up to 65F, 55-60 is probably best. (The average yearly temps where that yeast grew up is 55F) I'd just do 2 weeks primary @55-65 and 2-4 weeks secondary @60 or below, bottle condition for 2 weeks @ 65 and you're done.
 
I brewed Northern Brewer's California Common kit with the wyeast steam strain without much regard to the temp. It was in the low 70's for about 4-5 weeks, i didn't use a secondary either and it was maybe the second best of my ten brews to date.

I'm not saying don't try to achieve proper temps, just saying don't sweat it too much.
 
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