Brewing ale under 18 degrees Celcius?

[BrewSmith19]

Just curious if anyone's tried brewing an ale under 18 degrees C, my first homebrew seemed to come out fine at about 15-16 degrees even though ive only been told that the yeast wont function properly, is fermenting at room temperature more of a speed thing?

 

[DonutMuncher]

I personally have not fermented an ale colder than about 18C. Each type of yeast has a preferred temperature range for fermentation. I think most Ale yeasts tend to be in the mid 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit depending on the yeast strain. I would suspect that most yeasts will still operate at below-normal temperatures (like yours) to a certain extent, but it will result in a slower ferment, and the yeast may not create some of the flavor byproducts that they would at the recommended temperature level.

 

[gcdowd]

18C is a great temp for an ale (64F). I ferment many of my ales on the low end of the range, 60-64. I feel you get a cleaner yeast profile with the lower temps. Even 15-16 isn't terrible, the yeast may just take longer to ferment the beer

 

[boscobeans]

I do ales at 16-17C all the time using Nottingham yeast. It keeps krausen levels under control and fermentation always kicks in vigorously after 12-18 hours. Never had any problems. If it gets near 70 it tends to get out of control and I lose a lot of beer to a blowoff.

bosco

 

[tektonjp]

I rarely ferment ales OVER 18c.

 

[unionrdr]

18C is 64.4F to be exact. Here's a handy conversion formula that I listed among others in the stickies above. (C x 1.8c) + 32 = F. This has helped me a lot in brewing or answering questions.
Anyway,yeasts like US-05 can go down to 60F comfortably,albeit slowly. I've gotten clean flavors from there up to 74F. The higher temp(s) were spikes though. but it's def a clean performer from low to higher temps,which is great for the average brewer.

 

[Toga]

I fermented a batch of pale ale at 52 degrees F with US05. Took 3 weeks to ferment and had to do a D rest. It was an amazing beer.