Do you need a cold temp for lager

[Brotherton Lad]

There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's Google Translate: http://translate.google.com/?hl=en#auto|en|

See how far google gets you with this, boingy:

Ya toje govaryou pa russki, no eta ochen slosjni yazik.

[az77]

For kit lager the yeast that they come with is usually intended to be fermented at around 20C. Some good instructions on Horden Hillbilly's site here:

http://uk-homebrew.tripod.com/id12.html

How's your brewing coming along, az?
In a few short days you've asked about brewing alcohol, cider and lager. Have you taken the plunge and started a batch of anything yet?

Well i am waiting to get a digitial thermometer, i did a test sugar wash however(about 5 litres of water, 5g of champayne yeast and 2kg of sugar) just to see what the temps would be with the strip thermometer and the strip is really useless, it says the temps are between 24-28 degree but it can't be. It seems it will be fairly tricky to keep the temps within 18-22deg when i do a proper brew. I also wanted to see the fermentatioon in process and although it does bubble it's only a very small amount not nearly enough to push CO2 thought the airlock for exmaple, or certainly not visable. Yes 5 litres is not much but i still expected to see some more rigorus fermentation, it's had about 30hours.

So it must be the temps. Another weird (ish) thing, (i make bread btw) and out of interest i put a small amount of bakers yeast and a tsp of sugar into a cup and added some warm water, now usually the yeast will rise very fast and give a nice foamy head as it did last time i made bread about 2 weeks ago but this time it didn't, was just flat, so either the bakers yeast has gone a bit weak or the water is funny, i.e maybe too much cholrine - just a guess. This bakers yeast experiment has nothing to do with my brew btw unless there is a problem with the tap water.

I really need a heat belt and digi themometer, without these i can't risk wasting time and money of a brew.