Evan!
Well-Known Member
On 12/26, I brewed a Smoked Winter Lager. All went well, it's been in secondary for a few weeks now and I'd like some advice on short bulk lagering periods. My lagerator is a chest freezer (one-carboy capacity) with a regulator, and I'm lagering at about 40ºf. I'd like to brew another lager, though, so what do you guys think the min bulk aging time is before I can go ahead and bottle it? My basement was a brisk 52º this morning, and my digital thermo says that it hasn't gotten above 58f in at least a week. I'm thinking I'd bottle it sometime soon and "bottle-lager" them in my cold basement. So where's the cutoff? I've always bulk-lagered for at least a month in the past, but this stuff tastes great right now and I'm thinking it might be fine to bottle it in a week to free up the lagerator. Alternately, I could put the bottles in my shed, which is even colder---but at what temp would a bottle freeze? It was 17º when I woke up today.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?