Lagering / ageing without a fridge

[Sadu]

I don't have a dedicated brewing fridge yet and when I do get one it will probably be for fermenting lagers rather than storage. It will be a hard sell to get 2 brewing fridges, we don't have the space.

But there's still the need to somehow keep bottled lagers as cold as possible for lagering, and I also need to age my porters / stouts / big beers somewhere not too warm so they last well. Right now I have 80x 16oz bottles (2 large boxes) that require 6 month+ ageing but that amount will increase.

It's wintertime for me now so I keep them at room temp in a cool room (50f) after bottle carbonation which works fine but in summertime the coolest room we have will be around 70f and I can see that being an issue.

How does everyone else without a dedicated fridge manage?

 

[unionrdr]

When I bottle my hybrid lagers, Dampfbier, & other similar styles requiring a bit of lagering, I put as many bottles in the fridge after carb & condition as SWMBO will allow. I leave'em in their for at least 2 weeks to simulate lagering. Works pretty well so far, since the WLP029 kolsch yeast gives lager-like balance of flavors with that bit of crispness on the back.
I just got an A/C unit in my brewery/man cave to keep temps down, so that can help as well?...

 

[Sadu]

I just scored a free fridge-freezer. Yay!

And I think I have found a solution to the problem of wanting both a fermenting fridge plus a dispensing / lagering fridge.

What I'm thinking is that the fridge is set to run normally on it's own thermostat, running at 39f or whatever. I use it for lagering / yeast storage / keeping beer cold.

Additionally I stick a bucket of starsan in the fridge. 12v water pump goes in the bucket, connected to a stainless mini-immersion chiller which sits either in the fermenting beer or in the swamp cooler with the fermenter. STC-1000 driving the pump, plus aquarium heater or heat belt for heating the fermenter, also on the STC-1000.

Advantages:
- Can run multiple fermenters off the fridge instead of just what can fit inside the fridge.
- Can ferment multiple batches independently at different temperatures - ales + lagers at the same time no problem.
- Fridge can stay at 39f so it's good for dispensing / lagering / other, vs an ale fermentation fridge which is no good for anything other than fermenting.
- Can use the freezer part for ice / frozen wort / whatever.

Disadvantages
- Need to drill a hole in the side of the fridge, the hoses would get squashed in the door crack.
- Might be a bit less efficient.
- Might not have enough cooling power for a lager in summertime.

Anyone tried something like this before?

 

[ncbrewer]

I like the concept. Cooling capacity might be an issue - fermenters sitting outside the fridge wouldn't be insulated (I assume), to they would take a lot of cooling compared to something inside the fridge. If there's enough capacity, it would be really cool (pun obviously intended).

 

[bucketnative]

Make sure the pump can withstand submersion in StarSan. It's acidic.

 

[Sadu]

Make sure the pump can withstand submersion in StarSan. It's acidic.

Hmm that's something I hadn't considered. They are $4 pumps from China so I can always try it out and see what happens.
The idea to use Starsan was for 2 reasons - firstly plain water tends to get slimy to the touch after about a week, obviously something living in there, not ideal to have organisms growing in the brewing environment. I'm not sure if boiling the water would make a difference here, but my swamp cooler tap water gets a bit gross after a couple of weeks if I don't change it.

And secondly if I have the coil immersed in the beer and something leaks I don't really want a few drops of water (slimy or otherwise) getting into the beer, that would be a recipe for infection.

Otherwise I could make a cool geek project with a servo to lift the pump out of the bucket when the power shuts off

 

[Sadu]

I just connected everything together.

Instead of putting the pumps in the fridge in starsan, I opted to put the pumps in the swamp cooler.

The small immersion chillers are in a bucket of water in the fridge, drilled a hole in the side of the fridge for the hoses.

When the beer gets too hot the STC-1000 turns on the 12v water pump. This pumps swamp cooler water through the copper coil in the fridge and back into the swamp cooler again. When it gets too cold there is an aquarium heater in the swamp cooler.

This setup ties me into using swamp coolers, but that isn't the worst thing in the world. I get to independently control multiple fermenters from one fridge and still be able to use the fridge for storing bottled beer. At the moment I have 2 STC-1000s, might add a third if this works well.

I think this is pretty cool.

 

[Peruvian802]

Pics?