Lagering in Cold Climate

[kahunaman]

Hey - couple of questions on Lagering.

I'll admit it. I'm scared of Lagers. But I want to make one at some point.
I'm in Buffalo. It gets to zero outside without a problem and tends to sit around 20-30 degrees for most of the winter. My garage sits at about a 45-55 degree range. I know that lagers and cooling chests go hand in hand. Does anyone in a cold weather climate make lager in their garage, and how critical does completely static temperature matter - or can it swing through the acceptable range?
I just don't want to have to hollow out a fridge to make this... would love to put my crappy frozen weather to some good!

 

[menschmaschine]

If your garage really does stay between 45 and 55, with an insulated box (to minimize temperature fluctuation), you could primary ferment a lager there. But you'll need to come up with a set-up for lagering to keep it at ~34dF.

 

[jspence1]

I'm planning on trying my fruit cellar. My garage gets too cold in december and january I've frozen beer once or twice in it. With the vent to the outside in the fruit cellar I think I can stuff some insulation in it if the temperature starts dropping too low.

 

[david_42]

I've fermented lagers in my old garage using nothing more complicated than a cardboard box with my foam camping pad in it. That reduced the 15F variation in the garage to less than 2F.

For lagering, I put the batch in a keg and move the box to the new garage. It doesn't have any insulation & is close to freezing most of the winter.

 

[balto charlie]

I am going to do this as well. I live in Baltimore where winters average 32-35 degrees. To compensate for your colder temps use the earlier or later part of winter. I am going to build a box as suggested by david to keep the swing to a minimum. You can get your cities average winter temps at NOAA. Here's what I used for B-more.
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/climate/bwi/bwitemps.txt

Baltimore average temps are perfect for outside lagering. Charlie