What Next?

[MakeMischief]

So, There's a carboy in the closet and I can hear its soft weeping due to its emptiness. I need to put an end to its suffering. What should I brew next? I've never brewed a lager and since it's beginning to get a bit cooler out here in the northeast I might give it a whack. Aside from a lager I was thinking a saison or my first barleywine. So what do you guys think. I wanna try something classic since this past year I've been getting a little whacky with my brewing and I think I need to get back to basics.

 

[maxamuus]

Great time for some fall beers. Just put my pumpkin in last week. Should be tasty just in time for Halloween.

 

[broadbill]

Do you have temperature control for the lager?

 

[user 21663]

You'll need to get the temps down into the 50's for a lager, so you'd probably need a good system for temp control.

Right now would be a good time to brew some winter spice beers so they are ready around the holidays.

 

[DrawTap88]

American what beers, winter warmer, pumpkin spice, kolsch. I'm going to be trying a saison for my next one, but my ambient temp may be much different than yours.

 

[heywolfie1015]

A nice American brown ale might be a good pick for fall/early winter.

 

[Yooper]

I have a list of beers I'm dying to brew next! The hard part is brewing enough to make them all.

I'm planning (in no particular order), an oatmeal stout, a Bohemian pilsner, another IPA, a steam beer, and a hoppy amber. Not anything particularly "special" at all, but I'm a traditionalist and I love traditional beer styles. I look at the BJCP guidelines, and want to make and drink them all!

My problem is that I love IPAs so I suck them down faster than I can get around to making them.

 

[MakeMischief]

I have a mini fridge that's still at my parnets place, would that work well enough for lagering?

 

[broadbill]

I have a mini fridge that's still at my parnets place, would that work well enough for lagering?

It would if you could:

Fit the fermenter inside of the fridge

if you had a way to regulate temperature (i.e. temp controller).

With lager you need to keep the fermentation on the cool side (50-55) then lager it at an even lower temp (40s). That is a tough thing to control with the on-board controller in the refrigerator.

 

[MakeMischief]

I think I'll try what a buddy of mine did. He basically sat the carboy in a milk crate in his basement and whenever his fermentation temp got too high he packed snow around it. It worked really well too! But this means I'll have to wait a few months, an I can't have an empty carboy for that long. Maybe I'll do a nut brown?