Warmer Fermenting Lager and Cooler Fermenting Ale Yeast Suggstions

[Numsquat]

Now that I'm getting back into brewing more than my basic recipes I still enjoy after many years. I have a 10gal brew system with 14gal conical but recently picked up a couple of buckets with the idea of splitting batches of a few of my recipes with different yeast.

One thing (among many others) I have been thinking about is doing a lager and ale yeast on the split batches. Right now though my fermenting freezer died during my recent move and only have my deep freeze (normally for keg carbonating and storage) for fermenting right now. I have never lagered before and have no knowledge of lager yeast.

So with only being able to use the one fermenter, I am looking to see if there are lager yeast that you could go at higher temps than normal for lagering plus any good ale yeast that do well at cooler temps, hence using the two yeast at the same temp in the same fermenter. Or if anyone who may have dome this and can give some suggestions and/or their results.

I figure this would give me something to do to get some variety until I figure out a new fermenter situation. Thanks for any feedback in advance.

 

[MrPowers]

California Lager Yeast (sold as WY2112 or WLP810) works very well into the mid 60’s. There has also been a surge lately of people using a very popular German lager yeast (sold as 34/70, WY2124, or WLP830) into the mid to high 60’s and reporting good results. Not every German lager yeast works into the 60’s. Just this specific one.

For ale yeasts, a good starting points are Kölsch, Ält, and Scottish strains, some of which work down into the mid to low 50’s. WY2565, 1007, 1728 or WLP003 and 028. (Keep in mind, white Labs Kölsch Yeast is not the same as Wyeast, and does not work well at low temperatures).

 

[catdaddy66]

There are several strains that can do both. I really like Cry Havoc (wlp862), which is technically a lager yeast but I have made several ales with it at 62°-66°. I just used the strain wlp800 (German pilsner) at 60° and have a great warm fermented lager. San Francisco lager yeast (wlp810) makes a great California common ale.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Check out the warm-fermented lager thread.

As we’ve learned more about the genetics of yeast, the boundaries between ale and lager have become much blurrier. WLP800 Pilsner is an ale yeast that people have been using for lager, and vice versa for WLP051 California V Ale, whereas Nottingham is a blend of ale and lager strains. Frohberg lager strains like 34/70 and S-189 kicked off the warm-fermented lager thing, people in that thread have moved on to WLP800 and in particular Mangrove Jack M54 California.

 

[Miraculix]

I used mj California lager in many batches without any temperature control. They all turned out very clean. Great yeast for any given ale temperature. So I would only focus on your ale yeast, choose one that you like, no matter what temperature it requires and let the mj yeast run at the same temp.

Although, don't let it get too cool for the mj as I have no experience on how the mj can take cooler temperature.

 

[JohnSand]

Nottingham is a blend, does very well at low temps.

 

[kh54s10]

As already said use a lager yeast that will work at warm temperatures. Then just about any ale yeast will work in the mid sixties.

 

[Numsquat]

Work got very hectic recently, pulled 120 hours the last two weeks, so just catching up here. Thanks for all the replies!

Read through the warm fermented lager thread so will be posting there in the future. Have a blonde recipe and another session beer recipes (3.9-4.4%) for the summer and I want to try to test some different flavor profiles with some lager yeast. I did get a new fermenting freezer so will do some split 5 gal batches with US-05 and a lager yeast, just for comparison.