I was hoping some of you could weigh in on this query.
I plan on brewing up a pumpkin beer this weekend and right now my ‘brewery’ (basement) is holding pretty steady in the 61 – 59 degree range.
I have Danish lager yeast (Wyeast) and a pack on Nottingham dry ale yeast. Should I go low end ale temperature or high end lager temperature? In about a month the 50 degree range will be no problem but I did not want to wait that long for my pumpkin beer. I would prefer not to use any temperature altering tools. Any thoughts??
That is the way I was leaning as well, but I thought I would throw it out there. My understanding is that there really is not too much of an ill effect fermenting at the low end of an ale yeast; it will just take a little longer to ferment. AKA I should leave it in primary no lessthan two weeks. My plan was a rack to secondary after 17 days.
Rack when you’ve reached your desired FG, not on an arbitrary schedule. Take a gravity reading after 10-14 days, wait a couple days, take another, and if they match you’ll know that primary is about done. Let it sit at least a few more days, then rack with confidence.