lager brewing without a chiller

[Jimmy Orkin]

Dave Warner said: I would think you could get a pretty good lager by storing on a cool (60-70 degree) house for the lagering period.

Everything about making beer has levels of perfection. You could store your beer at 60-70. You could store it 90-100. You could store it at 32-33.

It will be beer at the end of storage. How much oxidation will occur at the different temperatures? What other chemicals will breakdown or react at the different temperatures?

Lagering in beer making is done at almost freezing. Can you store your beer at 60-70. Yes you can. Will you get the same yeast fallout and cold conditioning as 32, no. It will not lager as good at a higher temperature. Remember, the rule of thumb for rate of reaction is: Rate of reaction is doubled for each 10 degree C increase in temperature.

That said, Reality is Perception, If you like your results with storing you beer at 60-70, don't worry about what others think. Enjoy your beer. But we are always looking for new innovations and we like to try people's beer. Bring it to a brewday for us to try.

[Dave Warner]

I agree completely.

If you want to make a lager and you have the gear, do it right and you'll get a much better product. But if you're starting out and can't lager but want to try brewing a lager recipe, I say do it at ale temps with a low-ester yeast and see what happens. That's all.

[RobDrechsler]

actually I'm picking up a fridge from my dad... it won't be dedicated to brewing sadly... and I have to figure out where I'm going to put it since I haven't seen my garage floor in years... yes, it's almost that full... yes, my wife has been promising to clean it up for years..


so to go semi off topic.. how do you hook up a temp controller to a fridge and or freezer..

[Dave Warner]

The ones from Johnson Control that you can get from HBHQ are very simple. Refrigerator plugs into the JC unit (power cord), the JC unit plugs in the wall. A probe goes through the door. You set your refrigerator's thermostat to a certain level and leave it. The JC unit has a dial for whatever temp you want and basically feeds power to the fridge when it raises above a certain temperature. I think there is a 5 degree lag so the unit doesn't constantly turn the fridge on and off. That works for homebrewing just fine.

It's pretty accurate too. I figured there would be a variance, so I bought an aquarium thermometer with a probe to monitor the actual temp and it was pretty close to the temp controller.

[chris mewhinney]

That's great you're getting a fridge. Now you can make a real lager. Just don't let the wife put too much of that annoying food in there...

Also, do calibrate the fridge and temp control unit. The temp in my fridge runs 8 degrees warmer than what is set on the temp controller. So it's important to know that so you can set the temp controller at a lower temp.

Good luck lagering!

[RobDrechsler]

now you keep saying temp controllers, now in all my frigs I got a little dial that goes to 10 ( I really want one that goes to 11, but that's another story ) are you talking about taking measurements at various settings to find your ranges or is a temp controller being purchased and added that has a finer range?

[Dave Warner]

The thermostat in the fridge won't allow the temp to go above 40 degrees. The range of a typical 0 to 10 fridge thermometer is somewhere between 32 and 40 degrees (they are designed that way so food can't spoil). As a home brewer you need temps that range up into the 70's. For that, you need a new thermostat (complicated) or a temp controller like this one:

http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart ... ostat.html

You can use your brewing thermometer in a glass of water inside the fridge to calibrate the actual fridge temp to the one set by the controller.

By the way, using a temp controller like this sets the freezer and refrigerator portions of side-by side or over under refrigerator to the same temperature, so don't try and use the freezer as a freezer when you're fermenting an ale in the summertime.

[RobDrechsler]

interesting, I guess this shuts off the fridge for extended period of times to keep the temp up

[chris mewhinney]

Correct. Put the thermostat in the water, like Dave suggested, along with the temperature probe from the new controller you're going to buy. If you set the controller to 40, but the thermometer says 50 (like mine), you'd need to lower the dial on the controller to 30.

Make sense?

And you can "sell" this to the wife on the basis of great energy savings when you're doing ales!

Oh yeah, and the way Dave learned that the freezer and fridge compartments are both regulated by the same controller is by having a bag of ice in the freezer...which then ended up in the refrigerator in a more fluid form. OK, maybe that's how CHRIS figured it out...

[Jimmy Orkin]

For the best temperature control, tape the bulb from the controller to the side of your fermentation vessel. Tape a wash cloth or something similar over the blulb to give it some insulation from the air. Active yeast will raise the temperature of the fermentation by several degrees above the air temperature in the refrigerator. You want to control the temperature of the fermentation not the temperature of the refrigerator air.

There are other schemes to get a probe in side the fermentation. Jamil says the side of the carboy is fine and does not risk injecting an infection into your beer.