what to do

[larry]

Hi all I have a room in my basement i want to turn into a wine making room.. How ever today I put a thermometer down there. Its holding at 55 maybe a bit warmer in summer. there is no heat down there.2 walls are block walls the other 2 are inside walls, the walls are sheetrocked no insulation am i right i cannot ferment at that temp?

 

[Johnd]

You can ferment whites in those temps all day long, it's a good temp for them. If you intend to do reds down there, you could invest a few bucks in a brew belt and keep the temps up a bit to facilitate fermentation. My wine room is 55F, I do my whites in there, but my reds in the house where the temps are around 73F, and move them into the wine room after fermentation (AF and MLF).

 

[Johny99]

@Johnd is right. You could also just use a space heater to get fermentation going or a heat mat. Once it is fermenting, heat will be generated. It might be you get enough off of that that it continues just fine. note, there are those that intentionally do colder red fermentations.

MLF will likely be a bigger challenge than af since the bugs seem to be much more temperature sensitive.