lagers

Does anyone know a way to lager without having a fridge to do it in? I know you can keep it outside in winter but that just passed..

assuming that you may not have a cold basement, cellar or a beer cave, a laborious method would be to do put the entire carboy containing your premature beer in a cold water bath refilled with ice 2-3 times a day.

I did this for a week in summer a year ago, my primary was in a 5 gallon beer bucket, and I used a rubbermaid clothes storage container (plastic) filled with cold water. i used two 5 litre jugs of mineral water container and put that in the freezer for ice. And changed ice twice a day. As for the secondary, I had no option but to bottle all my beer and cold condition the bottles in my fridge.

Today, I have a secondary lagering on my balcony. Its 42F or 5.6C outside.

Good luck

Buy one of those big round plastic tub buckets with the rope handles. Those work perfectly and are cheap. Fill it with water, ice and your fermenter. Use a thermometer to keep track of the temp so you know when to refill with ice.

I am doing what h22lude suggested right now. Got a cool spot in my basement (a closet that stays 10-20 degrees cooler then the rest of the basement).

I have one of those big tubs (walmart purchase), and put 3 2 liter bottles filled with frozen water. I have a second set of bottles ands switch them out twice a day.

Been at a steady 40-42 for almost 4 weeks now. It's a pain in the butt, but soon I will have a lager to drink.

Another option is a big brewing pipeline so one can wait. I've successfully made many lagers that were "lagered" at 50 F. It works just fine, it just takes longer. I also will try and use restraint when I first tap a lager and let it set for 2 weeks in the kegerator before I start hitting it hard (I have 4 taps so that makes the waiting easier.

I've been using a large plastic tub of water out in my brew shed. It holds two fermenters. It had been 48-50F from late November to mid February. Now it's getting a little too warm. I'll be adding ice if I brew soon. Next month it will be in ale temps.



Here it is with some frozen 2L bottles in it.

I'm in the process of getting the parts to make the "son of a fermentation chiller". I don't have the room for a fridge right now, so this looked pretty good. The parts come to about $70 and supposedly the chiller gets temps down about 30 degrees below the ambient temp outside the box. Being in SoCal, I figure I need some kind of cooling to ferment during the summer months even for ales. I figure I can attempt some lagers during the winter months when it gets a bit cooler in the garage. You should check it out...

http://web.archive.org/web/20070206150821/http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF

BryceL said:

I'm in the process of getting the parts to make the "son of a fermentation chiller". I don't have the room for a fridge right now, so this looked pretty good. The parts come to about $70 and supposedly the chiller gets temps down about 30 degrees below the ambient temp outside the box. Being in SoCal, I figure I need some kind of cooling to ferment during the summer months even for ales. I figure I can attempt some lagers during the winter months when it gets a bit cooler in the garage. You should check it out...

http://web.archive.org/web/20070206150821/http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF

Click to expand...

For $70 you can buy a nice used chest freezer off of craigslist. Then you just need a temp controller and you're all set. Trust me, it beats swapping out ice bottles.

Yeah, I just don't have room for another fridge right now. Plus I don't want to spend the extra money on a temperature controller right now. At some point I will definitely make the switch, but right now I'm limited by funds/space. I figure that the fermentation chiller will be easy enough to move wherever I want. I'll have the option of putting it in a closet inside my house, or out in the garage. I've heard the ice jugs need replacing every 2-3 days depending on the temps, which sounds reasonable. We'll see how long before that gets old