Times of the Year

[krawdizzle]

Sorry if this is ridiculous, but is it safe to say that brewers tend to stick to lagers in the winter/colder months, ales and belgians in the summer,etc due to temperaure conditions.

 

[Brewsmith]

Depends where you live! Your neck of the woods, winter is the perfect time to do lagers. In my neck I still need a dedicated fridge for all fermentation, not just lager.

 

[krawdizzle]

makes sense. Nice moog pic.

 

[Brewsmith]

Wish I had one!

I Have a German Pilsner going right now. The fermentation fridge is set at 52. Right now the ambient temp is about 59. I have my fridge set up with a heat source so that I can continue to do ales in the winter when it actually gets into the 40's at night.

 

[krawdizzle]

Cool. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I didn't realize how crucial fermentation temp was. But not that the temp is starting to change here I can see how it affects the process.

 

[Brewsmith]

My beers really started getting good when I could control the fermentation temp. I have an electronic control on the fermentation fridge. For ales I set it at 68 with a 2 degree swing. Right now the lager is the only thing I have going and it's at 52. I can't brew anything else until it's done so I can raise the temp back up. It's been warm here this week and it's not supposed to cool until after thanksgiving. Once we're really in "winter" here, I won't need the fridge part, but the box does keep temps fairly stable.

 

[krawdizzle]

That's really smart. I suppose in CA you half to control it more than rely on the time of year it is. I can use my fridege as well to brew whatever regardless of the time of year.

 

[krawdizzle]

Go get yourself a moog. There only like 1200.

 

[Brewsmith]

Yeah, in the winter the temps vary from around 40 at night to 70 during the day. Mid summer can see over 90, which means over 100 in my garage, amd still over 70 at night. I was tired of using ice baths amd getting the fermenter out of the house was nice.

Ther are guys on the board that lager in their garage during the winter. I know that in the northern states, a garage on a concrete slab can stay an even 50 or below all day long.

 

[krawdizzle]

Nice that's perfect.

 

[Brewsmith]

Me, on the other hand... My garage door faces east and turns into a big oven when the sun comes up. Not to mention that on numerous occasions I've celebrated Christmas at 80 degrees outside.

 

[Kevin Dean]

I didn't realize how crucial fermentation temp was.

There's a thread around here (I'll save you the trouble, it's here ) that is to the extent of "If you knew then what you know now."

Once it was tossed out there, one of the most commented on aspect to making good beer was temp control. It's critical from both ales and lagers and is something I didn't give a thought to when I did my first few batches.

 

[wild]

Down here, I've heard of people using their pools to lager during the winter.