MattHollingsworth
Well-Known Member
Just bought a new fridge for bottle conditioning with another Ranco temp controller on the way. I'm brewing in an apartment with a small basement and read about some other options for warming the bottles as the weather cools. But went with the fridge ultimately. I've found that with my setup, with Wyeast 1056 in my beers with my system, that 70 is not warm enough for bottle conditioning. 73 seems to work a lot better at least for the early part. I had my regular freezer that's my fermenter open for a couple of weeks while I waited for some equipment I needed for brewing and set it up with a blow drier set up low set to the Ranco on the second stage "heat", set to 73. Worked great. The previous beers had been around 69-70 and had really not been carbonating very well even after 3 weeks. Yeah, I know, they'll get there eventually. But when I did this at 73, that other beer was already more carbonated after one week.
Anyway, the basement's also getting cooler. And I don't want to heat the whole basement because I'll have some barley wine and imperial stout sitting out there during the winter for their secondaries. The fridge is also a nice way to conserve space because I can put stuff on top of it. It'll hold around 130 bottles from my calculations. So enough for 3 batches. I brew around 20 liters, then bottle in half liter bottles, so 40 bottles.
Happy with that. It'll make my life easier.
Cue the smartass kegging comments. The fridge can be used for kegging too once I get that set up here. For the moment, I'm not going to do it. Maybe next year. We'll see. I like having bottles to give away....
Anyway, the basement's also getting cooler. And I don't want to heat the whole basement because I'll have some barley wine and imperial stout sitting out there during the winter for their secondaries. The fridge is also a nice way to conserve space because I can put stuff on top of it. It'll hold around 130 bottles from my calculations. So enough for 3 batches. I brew around 20 liters, then bottle in half liter bottles, so 40 bottles.
Happy with that. It'll make my life easier.
Cue the smartass kegging comments. The fridge can be used for kegging too once I get that set up here. For the moment, I'm not going to do it. Maybe next year. We'll see. I like having bottles to give away....
