I have a chest freezer set at 50 to age some long term stuff. I can ferment lager at 50, but am not sure about lagering. I’m hesitent to lower the temperature to 32 to lager not being sure how that would affect the stuff I have long term aging at cellar temp. What effect would lagering at 50 have on beer?
If fermentation is complete(and you don’t have any weird bugs in there), then storing ales at lager temps is absolutely no problem. That’s what Altbiers do- ferment at coolish ale temps and age at lager temps. Real nice results.
I wouldn’t consider 50* to actually be lagering as much as aging… and this isn’t going to get the sediment/phenols to fall out very quickly if at all. Bulk aging at colder temps will slow your aging on ales but it would be ok. I would lager at 32* and just let my ales age longer.
You have touched on something that has cursed homebrewers for years… not enough cold storage. At some point I had one big spare fridge and I wanted to ferment at 50° and also lager in that fridge but I couldn’t do it. If you had a “lager” and you wanted to “lager” it, I would not call 50° cool enough to lager. That said, I think I remember seeing someone say that the colder you lager, the longer the lagering phase would last. So if you “lagered” at 40°, the beer would be “lagered” and ready to drink earlier than if you lagered at 32°. That was a long time ago and I’m sure I’ve torched some brain cells since then so some additional homework would have to be done. But I don’t see a problem storing the lagers at 50° for some period of time.
