Beer Cellar thread - real cellars, closet cellars, fridge cellars, freezer cellars, wine coolers

[brian4beer]

HOLY ******* **** IS THAT A BOTTLE OF DAVE IN THE UPPER LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was

 

[ObiWanKushnobi]

Was

 

[duketheredeemer]

<3 this convo.

So IMO the whole horizontal/vertical issue boils down to cork integrity, and potential loss of elasticity which may yield faster diffusion oxygen diffusion rates of the liquid. If the cork never changed its structure, the orientation would not impact the diffusion rate of oxygen (Henry's Law in conjunction with Fick diffusion across cork membranes).

First off, carbonated vs. non-carbonated is not an issue when discussing oxygen diffusion through the cork. As mentioned above, diffusion occurs only due to the partial pressure of the oxygen, independent of other gasses. Most of the high pressure within a carbonated bottle comes from CO2. That said, increased pressure within a beer or champagne bottle may impact the physical structure of the cork, although as far as I know this has not been studied. I'd think that the size, shape, and composition of the cork plays a far more important role.

It should also be noted that 100% humidity within the bottle does not equal the same level of saturation of a cork as direct-contact with the liquid. Water absorption during vertical storage relies upon internal pressure whereas horizontal storage utilizes direct static/capillary action of the cork to absorb liquid. There's also the question of volatility of compounds - not everything is volatile at cellar temp, and therefore would have minimal impact on the cork integrity.

Fundamentally, vertical storage relying upon water vapor will not saturate a cork as well as horizontal storage. Absorption of water vapor by a cork discussed here. Absorption of water, wine, etc. by cork is well-studied (it occurs in direct contact) - here's a good article. I can provide some anecdotal evidence - my dad had a case of wine that was 10-12 years old. Some of the bottles from the case were stored horizontally in a closet, and the others were stored vertically (due to space constraints). A few Christmases ago we opened bottles of both orientation and he horizontal bottles had saturated corks whereas the corks of the vertical bottles were not saturated and were far drier overall.

That, however, doesn't mean horizontal storage is better. If you've ever had an old beer (or an old wine), you'll know that corks have a tendency to lose their elasticity, which yields a cork that is quite easy to remove from the bottle (there was a champagne-related study circulating around but nobody could seem to find the source of the data). This loss of elasticity also has a tendency to reduce the cellular matrix structure of the cork, which would yield increased oxygen diffusion (since the liquid within the bottle doesn't affect the diffusion rate, just the partial pressures of the O2).

Therefore, as stupac2 mentioned earlier:


The critical piece of this discussion/analysis is composition and quality of the cork. Cork sourcing and manufacturing has changed over the years, and as such you will see variance within a single brewery (like Cantillon).

I'd say don't worry to much about it, unless you are trying to age very valuable or rare beers. Then, do what the manufacturer does (usually horizontal).

Everything about this post is awesome. I'm going to have to read through those references that were posted a bit closer. After a quick skim, it seems like the problem with treating the system just as a vapor equilibrium problem is the pourosity of the surface, which makes the interactions considerably more complex. And that's before we consider chemical reactions at all. Really cool stuff!

 

[jtmartino1]

Everything about this post is awesome. I'm going to have to read through those references that were posted a bit closer. After a quick skim, it seems like the problem with treating the system just as a vapor equilibrium problem is the pourosity of the surface, which makes the interactions considerably more complex. And that's before we consider chemical reactions at all. Really cool stuff!

Absolutely - the chemical reactions of the solution with the cork fibers, the amount of suberin in the cell walls, lignins, tannis, fatty acids, etc. Certainly different types of cork yield different results long-term.

The first article is awesome: Knudsen vs. Fick mechanism.

 

[maca1028]

Its a hand me down but finally a legitamit place for me to keep beer

Where the broken wine cooler goes

Mrs. maca1028 wasn't too thrilled about it so I let her decorate a bit.

 

[wyatt1]

I just bought a third wine cellar. If I have to move it will be terrible.

 

[nophunk]

I just bought a third wine cellar. If I have to move it will be terrible.

I thought you were moving soon? Get ready I am finally pretty organized after moving into a new spot April 1st. It was a huge pain in the ass.

This was the best $50 find on Craigslist. It's been holding a good chunk of my beer for a year now. And I've finally gotten it back to holding 90% sours. Edit: there is a bunch of BCS in the door.

Chest freezer turned big beer cellar. I bought a $25 dehumidifier that is working really well at keeping it super dry. The cardboard feels extra stiff lol. I need to get another milk crate to hold the top beers as this box actually traps a good bit of cold air below it, surprisingly. The bottom part is always 3-5 degrees cooler than the top half.

Small mini fridge for stuff that will be consumed in the somewhat near future but doesn't need to sit in the super cold hop-centric mini fridge.

 

[Dsal891]

Will be closing on a new house but the lower level, while nice, doesn't have a cool area I can use (not using a crawl space) so I'm wanting to get a wine fridge and convert my current chest freezer to a kegerator. I've searched a bit on the interwebs for something that can hold 100-200 bottles. Ideally trying to stay under a grand. I've only found one thus far but I don't wanna pull the trigger on it until I know for certain it is my best bet.


Any input, thoughts, ideas where I can find something?

 

[ASak10]

Will be closing on a new house but the lower level, while nice, doesn't have a cool area I can use (not using a crawl space) so I'm wanting to get a wine fridge and convert my current chest freezer to a kegerator. I've searched a bit on the interwebs for something that can hold 100-200 bottles. Ideally trying to stay under a grand. I've only found one thus far but I don't wanna pull the trigger on it until I know for certain it is my best bet.


Any input, thoughts, ideas where I can find something?

You can buy an upright freezer and then use an external temp control to keep it at your desired temperature. Only downside would be if the temp control ever broke...the freezer would kick in and you could be having slushies instead of beer. I'm sure there are ways to prevent this from happening but I haven't really looked into it. I'm guessing people on here have done this, so hopefully they can chime in with some experience.

 

[stupac2]

Only downside would be if the temp control ever broke...the freezer would kick in and you could be having slushies instead of beer.

People have said this before, but I don't know how it would happen. Temperature controllers work by turning the unit off and on, it's hard to see how it would break such that it's forced on. It seems to me it would either short out (which certainly wouldn't turn the thing) on blow up such that it's forced off.

The only way I can see this happening is if the thermocouple falls out of the area of measurement. And if you're paranoid you can just hook up two of them in series, that way if one breaks, the other is still regulating.

 

[nophunk]

You can buy an upright freezer and then use an external temp control to keep it at your desired temperature. Only downside would be if the temp control ever broke...the freezer would kick in and you could be having slushies instead of beer. I'm sure there are ways to prevent this from happening but I haven't really looked into it. I'm guessing people on here have done this, so hopefully they can chime in with some experience.

Yes. Get the Johnston A419. It has a feature that allows you to choose to turn off the fridge/freezer if there is a failure with the thermometer.

stupac2 it has happened to people. This is the solution.

 

[stupac2]

Yes. Get the Johnston A419. It has a feature that allows you to choose to turn off the fridge/freezer if there is a failure with the thermometer.

stupac2 it has happened to people. This is the solution.

That's very "wut" to me. How does it know that the thermometer has failed? How the hell does a thermocouple even fail (especially at low temperature), it's just two pieces of metal fused together. I suppose if the other models default to "on" if no current is returning then that would **** **** up, but that's so mind-blowingly stupid I have a hard time believing it's the case. If it's just putting a cap on how long it'll run, that seems like it would work, but not especially well (could still freeze in cold weather).

It's also possible that my experience hand-building these systems out of thermocouples, PIDs, and switches doesn't apply to the all-in-one units, which would be weird.

 

[Dsal891]

Not a fan of the upright freezer because I want something that will also look nice. I think I will end up just biting the bullet for something a tad smaller.

 

[ASak10]

Not a fan of the upright freezer because I want something that will also look nice. I think I will end up just biting the bullet for something a tad smaller.

You could go the commercial route and get one of those stainless/see through door models, but I think that will cost well north of a grand.

 

[evilc]

That's very "wut" to me. How does it know that the thermometer has failed? How the hell does a thermocouple even fail (especially at low temperature), it's just two pieces of metal fused together. I suppose if the other models default to "on" if no current is returning then that would **** **** up, but that's so mind-blowingly stupid I have a hard time believing it's the case. If it's just putting a cap on how long it'll run, that seems like it would work, but not especially well (could still freeze in cold weather).

It's also possible that my experience hand-building these systems out of thermocouples, PIDs, and switches doesn't apply to the all-in-one units, which would be weird.

It detects failure with the associated circuitry. It happened to me. It isn't the thermocouple failing, it's the circuit. If all of a sudden the temp spikes 40 degrees, it knows that is bogus. The unit can be told to either power up or power down.

 

[GuisseppeFranco]

Not a fan of the upright freezer because I want something that will also look nice. I think I will end up just biting the bullet for something a tad smaller.

I wound up getting this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007PNX0SE/?tag=talkbecom09-20. After doing a lil research it was the best in terms of bottles stored, price, looks.

 

[Dsal891]

I wound up getting this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007PNX0SE/?tag=talkbecom09-20. After doing a lil research it was the best in terms of bottles stored, price, looks.

How is it for bottles of lambic?

 

[GuisseppeFranco]

How is it for bottles of lambic?

One of the main concerns when I was shopping around was being able to fit 750ml bottles in the racks. This model just barely makes it by without scratching the label. Given the larger size of a 750ml, you're not gonna get maximum capacity, I think you can fit 10 bottles a shelf (I'll doublecheck for you later on). But I use it for everything and every size and I'm fitting close to 180 containers of beer. A few things could def be better about the machine...it can be slightly noisey cycling on and off, the drawers are not full slide out so if they're fully loaded they need to be supported by your hand but other than that it's serving it's purpose. It also made my wife happy because there isn't beer everywhere now.

 

[nophunk]

That's very "wut" to me. How does it know that the thermometer has failed? How the hell does a thermocouple even fail (especially at low temperature), it's just two pieces of metal fused together. I suppose if the other models default to "on" if no current is returning then that would **** **** up, but that's so mind-blowingly stupid I have a hard time believing it's the case. If it's just putting a cap on how long it'll run, that seems like it would work, but not especially well (could still freeze in cold weather).

It's also possible that my experience hand-building these systems out of thermocouples, PIDs, and switches doesn't apply to the all-in-one units, which would be weird.

It detects failure with the associated circuitry. It happened to me. It isn't the thermocouple failing, it's the circuit. If all of a sudden the temp spikes 40 degrees, it knows that is bogus. The unit can be told to either power up or power down.

I could have worded it wrong, but this is how it works in layman's terms I think. I feel much safer knowing that if something went wrong, I wouldn't have several hundred dollars of frozen beer.

 

[evilc]

I could have worded it wrong, but this is how it works in layman's terms I think. I feel much safer knowing that if something went wrong, I wouldn't have several hundred dollars of frozen beer.

I just used a freezerless fridge. Holds a ton of beer and no matter the failure mode the beer is safe.

 

[nophunk]

I just used a freezerless fridge. Holds a ton of beer and no matter the failure mode the beer is safe.

Look at the page before this one for my setup

 

[GuisseppeFranco]

How is it for bottles of lambic?

Confirmed 10x 750ml's per shelf. At 10 shelfs plus the bottom shelf with extra head space you can easily fit 150 bottles.

 

[xscottypx]

working on my new cellar, need more wine racks though.

 

[PepeSylvia1]

Has anyone here tried creating a root cellar of sorts where you essentially bury a bunch of beer in the ground for long-term aging?

Obviously not very convenient, but seems like it could be a decent "out of sight/out of mind" idea for stuff you know you want to age for like 10 years or so.

Like this
https://eng.ecool.dk/

 

[Patoo]

working on my new cellar, need more wine racks though.

Beautiful! Where did you find the racks?

 

[xscottypx]

Beautiful! Where did you find the racks?

the horizontal was from ebay for like $100. its pine and holds 54 bottles. the other is cheap and from ikea. lots of L brackets were used too as well as linger screws for support.

the bottles in the middle and front are shelves from a wine fridge that broke on me

shopping amazon now for another rack or two

 

[HeadytheElder]

Like this
https://eng.ecool.dk/

Yes!

They just need to make one for 750 bottles.

 

[tehzachatak]

Has anyone here tried creating a root cellar of sorts where you essentially bury a bunch of beer in the ground for long-term aging?

Obviously not very convenient, but seems like it could be a decent "out of sight/out of mind" idea for stuff you know you want to age for like 10 years or so.

Have not, but sometime in the next half decade I am going to build one of these on some property I have way up north in Maine - everything freezes really hard in the winter so going to need to dig below the frost line...

 

[stupac2]

Finished moving the cellar into its new location:

It's a pretty narrow space, only 6', but I think it'll work well. Plenty of space to expand, which is good, though I kind of hope I don't need it. The thermometer was reading ~58 before I had the lights on and was moving around in there for hours, so I'm optimistic about temperatures. I'm going to put some insulation on the walls and ceiling at some point, I think it should keep pretty cool after that. I'll also need to build a wall/door at some point, this is right behind the furnace and water heater.

Also, this took way longer to do than it should've because of:

Those are rat tracks, in case you can't tell. Among the many move things about moving into my own home is that I can actually control this space, so there won't be any ******* rats in here. Cleaning every single bottle took forever...

 

[mcaulifww]

I've seen the standing freezer units with a temp controller. Is this doable with a fridge unit or is there some reason its not? I imagine it would be fine. I'm looking to get a fridge and its easier to find a fridge/freezer than a standing freezer