Lagering in central Florida

[splobucket]

I'd like to lager some more beers, but I dont really have any place to put the fermenter. I have a kegerator, but right now it's full of kegs. Tried to swing getting a second one with my wife, but I was lucky enough to get the first one.

Any ideas for lagering a beer in central Florida? No basements, and no winter temperatures.

 

[mimus]

How about a small fermentation chiller?

 

[craigd]

There's not many options down here. I can't keep a ferm chiller below about 62 without a constant swap of ice - my house stays between 72 and 78 year round. So if you really need lagers you almost have to get a dedicated fridge and put a temp controller on it.

 

[passedpawn]

Chest Freezer is your best bet. Get her a new sweeper first. Cmon, wive's are easy.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I would look for a cheap, used refrigerator or chest freezer on craigslist or whatever. I use an old fridge for fermenting lagers and a chest freezer for serving and lagering. A typical refrigerator doesn't really get cold enough for lagering but is fine for fermenting lagers. A chest freezer will get cold enough for lagering.

It seems to me to be too much trouble otherwise. Not only do you need a place to ferment it for 2-3 weeks at around 50 F, you also need a place to lager it (as close to freezing as you can get it) for at least a month and more if you're making bigger lagers (Bocks/Dopplebocks, etc.). You want something you can set and forget imo.

EDIT: A side benefit is that you'll gain refrigerated storage space for bottled beers and hops. Maybe buy a bunch of whole hops from Hops Direct and fill up your freezer with them...so your wife will want you to buy something to get all those hops outta her freezer.

 

[JKoravos]

You can build a pretty big refrigerated 'closet' using a 5,000btu air conditioner. I'm planning on using an AC to cool a cold storage/fermentation closet that will house two 15 gallon conicals and have space to store up to 20 cornies. If you bypass the internal thermostat in the AC, you can get the temp down below freezing with a typical AC unit.

You do have to be careful about humidity, the coils will ice up if the box isn't well sealed and dry.