1968

IMO you're too worried. I have fermented with 1968 several times at about 66F.

 

Key with that yeast is once it starts to die down, keep it warm and maybe give the carboy a gentl rousing to keep the yeast suspended. If you let the temp drop before the beer is finished it could stop and also give you diacetyl. I ramp my temp up to 70-72 towards the end to be sure.

 

This is my go to english yeast. Just rouse the yeast a few times a day until the krausen falls, then increase the temp a few degrees. Then check gravity. You should be fine.

 

I've never had to rouse 1968 to get it to finish. Just another data point.

 

love the yeast. works fast, clears fast. cleans itself up fairly quickly even. obviously I don't know how much you pitched but in my experience it won't be many more hours before it's done.

 

Me neither, but I do try to raise the temps towards the end of fermentation as a diacetyl rest. I've never had a diacetyl issue with this yeast, so I'm not sure I'm actually preventing anything.

 

I don't rouse the yeast in order to get it to finish necessarily but I do it for all my beers as it's good practice IMO. It makes even more sense to do it for english strains though.

 

I love it when the yeast kicking. no reason for worried

 

Ditto.

 

+2

 

Not sure if I've "had to" just did it for safe measure. The controled temp rise that I use on all my beers seems to work great. Having heard about premature floccing with 1968, I roused for good measure.

 

Using it now on a brown ale, same temp 66-67 and had good activity up to day 5-6, day 9 I raised the temp up to 70 and I will prob keep it there for a couple and then lower it back down. It was my first time using that yeast also, so I agitated the fermentor once a day starting after day 6.

 

Was 65-67 the temperature of the beer? Or of the room?

 

Out of habit, I always use a blow-off for the first week and then switch over to an air lock. Probably not necessary for the few lagers I do but there is no harm in doing this routinely. Live and learn as you say.

 

Which means the beer is probably 73-74.

 

I wonder how accurate your fermometer is. It's not uncommon for the wort/beer to reach 5-7 degrees above the ambient temp. It's a common reason for blowoffs.