After a 10 year hiatus, I’m trying my hand at homebrewing again. I’m making an ESB from extract, using White Labs liquid British Ale Yeast. For primary fermentation, it’s been at 70-72 degrees, and has been bubbling away nicely. I’m planning to rack to a carboy tonight for secondary fermentation.
Will putting the carboy in a colder location be an issue? In my old digs, I always just left it in the kitchen, but that’s not really feasible anymore. The best place for it, in terms of it being out of the way of wives & children, is the basement utility room, but that’s been sitting at 55 degrees or so all winter. Otherwise, I’ve got to leave it where it is, but while it’s location in the corner of the kitchen was reasonable for a plastic bucket for 4 days, it’ll be quite a bit more problematic for a glass carboy for 2-3 weeks.
I’ve had problems with ales fermented too cold, myself - you might want to look into a wraparound heater or something similar, if you really don’t have a warmer spot to leave it in.
Well, though it’s called “Secondary fermentation,” you really shouldn’t be transferring until the actual fermentation is done. It’s more of a “rest” period, to allow the yeast to settle out, leading to a cleaner, clearer beer. I’d not put the beer there during primary fermentation, as 55F is way outside of the range for an ale yeast. It’d be just right for a steam beer though.
I’d not worry about putting the glass carboy in the 55F area for a couple of weeks. It might take a bit longer to bottle carbonate, as I"m assuming you’re probably going to put the capped bottles in the same place.
As good as the SD is for brewing questions, I can’t recommend www.homebrewtalk.com enough for particular brewing questions. Like any online forum, take everything with a grain of salt.