looking for fermenting temp. info.

[Brewer#19]

i brewed an irish red 2 weeks ago using an extract recipe with grains recipe i developed. i made a starter using an irish ale yeast and set in the basement as i've always done, original gavity was 1.052. i didn't get to rack it to secondary like i wanted to after 1 week due to a travel schedule, so i just racked it yesterday after 15 days in primary. i took my gravity reading and got 1.018. that works out to about 65% attenuation.

my question is too part, first does that seem right or does it seem a bit low? my quess is its not bad, but could be better, reason being the temperature it fermented at. i've been putting all my beers in a cabinet i have in the basement dedicated to storing my hb stuff. during the summer temperature wasn't really an issue, but now that the cold season has started i'm wondering if it may be a bit too cool down there for fermenting. the beer temp was 64 degrees F when i took the reading. second part to the question, is that temperature on the cool side such that it may be limiting/retarding my fermentation? for future brews, what's the ideal temperature to ferment at and what's an acceptable range of temperature before fermenting is affected?

thanks for any info

 

[Beerrific]

Was it white labs irish ale yeast? You can get info on their website: http://whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_strains.html

It says 65-68F, and the lower end of the attenuation is 69% so you aren't too far off on either. If you have the ability to, i would warm it up some to like 68 (or even a little higher) and see if that will drop you a few more gravity points.

It also looks like it has relatively high flocculation. So a lot of the yeast might have already dropped out. In the future I would recommend taking the gravity reading before racking and waiting to rack until you are at you desired FG.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brewer#19]

i once read on here that racking it to secondary can mildly re-activate the yeast and ultimately drop it a couple more points. i haven't seen it happen in any of my beers, but any truth to that?

it was Wyeast smack pack:

Technical Information:
Flocculation - medium; apparent attenuation 71-75%. (62-72° F, 16-22° C)

so based on that i was withing the temperature range. do i stand a chance of dropping it a few more points if bring the secondary temp up a bit like you said or am i pretty much done at this point.

 

[david_42]

65% isn't bad.
Yeasts vary. Nottingham can ferment well from 59F to 75F, other yeasts are pickier.

 

[count barleywine]

I had a wheat beer recently that I re-racked after 8 days, and the SG was alittle high, at 1.019. Once in secondary, it began actively fermenting again, and finished out properly over the next few days. It has East Coast Ale yeast from Whitelabs. I know its odd to secondary a wheat, but had I not, I may have ended up with bottle (gre)nades.