Colder than recommended fermentation? down sides?

[redking11]

I am a brand new brewer and I have a wheat beer fermenting. The best place in the house to safely keep a five gallon bucket away from kids and pets just happens to be about 53* ish. Too hot for a lager and too cold for an ale. Well I put my wheat beer in there anyways just to see if it would work. It's been bubbling consistently for just over 4 days. It started at about 4-5 bubbles per second and is down to 1-2 bubbles every 10 sec I would guess. So I think it is safe to say that the cold temp didnt kill the ale yeast, but are there any negative side affects to fermenting at a lower than recommended temp?

Any advice appreciated, many thanks

 

[samc]

Off flavors from stressed yeast, not fully attenuating. It would be good if you could slowly warm it up to proper temps for whatever yeast you are using.

 

[diS]

Easiest way to solve it is to make styrofoam box and add cheap controller with light bulb.
It works great for me.

 

[luhrks]

Bring it upstairs in a closet for a day. I'll clean itself up with a nice Diactyl rest.

And 53-58 is just about perfect for primary fermentation for a lot of lager strains.

 

[chezzesteak]

Rdwhahb

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Rdwhahb

^this, first and foremost. while you're RDWing, read this blog that i wrote about the benefits of fermenting 'cool'.

 

[Revvy]

The best advice of anything is to quit counting your bubbles, the rate of bubbling, or whether it bubbles at all has little ACTUAL correlation to any rate of fermentation or anyhting of that sort. Your airlock is a vent, a valve to release excess CO2, it's NOT a fermentation gauge. Some beers never bubble, some stop and start, some start or stop bubbling depending on ambient temp, barometeric pressure or whether or not the cat brushed against it......

Use a hydrometer to gauge fermentation, not your airlock.

 

[Token]

But those bubbles are just so danged fun!!

 

[redking11]

opened up my bucket today. and my beer tastes pretty good. The gravity is 1.18 as I read it. but it is murky.

 

[Stankonia]

I've always started out my ales around 60* (ambient temp) then slowly let them warm up eventually ending up around 68*. Some other home brewers I was talking to today were saying that fermenting too low gives fruity esters..but I was under the impression it was the other way around. They then said that too low AND too high give esters, and that they target 68* from beginning to end..which isn't my philosophy.

I think it's common knowledge that fermenting too warm will definitely give off esters, and being able to hold your temps 68-70 at the absolute highest is a good way to improve your beer..but I personally haven't read anything that talked about negative factors of fermenting on the low side (58-62) for ales.

 

[redking11]

damn im having the hardest time finding a place in the house that will get up to temp. Yeah we keep the furnace down in the winter what can I say

 

[JayWeezie]

damn im having the hardest time finding a place in the house that will get up to temp. Yeah we keep the furnace down in the winter what can I say

My lhbs has warming belts that wrap around the carboy and keep it at temp.
You could use something like that.

 

[photogscott]

The murkiness is probably from the yeast still in suspension. Plus wheat beers tend to be naturally hazy.

 

[cowgo]

Ambient temp won't be the same as your wort temp. My basement right now is 55 or so, but I have a wheat in the primary sitting down there that's at 64.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

damn im having the hardest time finding a place in the house that will get up to temp. Yeah we keep the furnace down in the winter what can I say

My lhbs has warming belts that wrap around the carboy and keep it at temp.
You could use something like that.

you could also do something like this to keep temps under your control.