Unintentional Lagering...

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Ninkasi

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I was unintentionally lagering an IPA I just made....

Basically, primary and secondary fermentation went off without a hitch at 65-68 degrees. I then moved the bottles to the basement for storage. I couldn't figure out why the beers had virtually no carbonation after 2 weeks. Then the idiot switch turn on in my head and I realized that the floor in my basement must be somewhere around 40 degrees! I moved the beer to a much more moderately location.

Will the simple temperature change be enough to start the bottle conditioning? Should I give all the bottles a nice swirl to kick start any yeast that may have settled out of the past two weeks? Should I just leave them alone now? Whadaya think?
 
Yeah, what Bird said...though, cold-conditioning bottles never hurt anything. They'll be better beers in the end because of it.
 
Should be right the yaest might have gone a bit domant butwith some slightly higher temp will come back to life and carbonate your beer. give it 3 weeks to a month and try again.
 
This happened to me, and patience is the key word. Take them back up to 68 and give em a good swirl every 2 days. Resist the temptation to sample until at least 2-3 weeks. Then open one to check the carbonation. If still not carbed, then give them another 2 weeks before opening the next. When it happened to me, it took 5 weeks before they were carbed...but it sure was delicious. My problem is that I probably drank a 1/4 of the flat beer before they were ready...remember...patience...

Marc.
 
UPDATE: Beer cases were moved to a warmer spot and all is well. I guess my concern had been that the ale yeast strain might settle out of the beer and go dormant but that was not the case. IPAs are carbinating nicely. Thanks all.
 
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