Wyeast 2035 American Lager How Cold Can You Go?

[Upthewazzu]

My crawl space is currently sitting at ~45°, has anyone fermented a lager at that temp? Wyeast website says 48°-58°. With a big enough starter, could that work?

 

[MoodyLane]

Following. I'm attempting a lager soon

 

[Upthewazzu]

bump

 

[stpug]

I've recently brewed 4 lagers with this strain and all have been fermented at 46-48F. I set my controller for 46F and it has a 1° hyterosis (i.e. 45-47F, but more like 46-47F). However, I always assume the fermenting beer is about a degree warmer inside (i.e. 47-48F). It ferments nice and slow at this temperature (7-10 day fermentations). In your case, if you need to eek out an extra degree of internal temperature then wrapping a light throw blanket around it ought to do the trick.

This strain did not produce too much sulfur on the primary pitch, but successive pitches have produced quite a bit (even with large O2 ppm, nutrients, copper in the boil, and good fermentation control). I kegged one batch too early and "trapped in" the sulfur so I'm currently bubbling co2 through the diptube and venting it to (hopefully) scrub the rest. After realizing this fact, I have been allowing an extended D-rest of 5-7 days for offgassing, following by a slower-than-usual crashing to lager temps (about 4 degrees per day) - these couple tactics seem to be working for me.

hope this helps.

Excellent strain BTW. Makes a killer mexican lager, IMHO. It will be a staple for me just like 2124 is.

 

[Upthewazzu]

This is great info, stpug. Thank you!