cold conditioning

[NTRabbit]

Can i ask, whats a good temperature to cold condition/lager at?

I have just now acquired a new mini fridge of sorts that can hold an entire 30L carboy inside, but it doesnt go as cold as i was hoping.

[Guest]

Try and cold condition in a 24lt cube or food grade jerry mate as you dont want too much headspace due to oxidization.
Best temp to lager is 2 - 4 deg for about a month.

[db]

Can i ask, whats a good temperature to cold condition/lager at?

I have just now acquired a new mini fridge of sorts that can hold an entire 30L carboy inside, but it doesnt go as cold as i was hoping.

what temp is it at ntr?

[NTRabbit]

Can i ask, whats a good temperature to cold condition/lager at?

I have just now acquired a new mini fridge of sorts that can hold an entire 30L carboy inside, but it doesnt go as cold as i was hoping.

what temp is it at ntr?

Its one of those glass door wine chilling fridges, which i can use for wine, or use to brew lagers at steady temperatures. Has a dial that lets me go from about 18*C down to 12*C according to the manual.

Depending on how it handles ambients, i can either use it to keep brewing lagers in summer, or get manageable temperatures for ales. Its in a cool spot so things should be fine.

I guess im sticking to lagering them in the proper beer fridge in the shed after i bottle them, since i havent any idea where to buy a "24 litre cube or food grade jerry" let alone what one is, nor do i have the funds with which to buy them. (the wine chiller was an early xmas gift from my parents)

[Guest]

Mate, you dont lager beer after you bottle . You finish your fermentation in your fermenter and you then rack into another container, then you put that container in a fridge at 2 to 4 deg for a month . Then you bottle , put the bottles away and let them carbonate . If you bottle and then try to lager in a fridge then they wont carbonate as the yeast would go to sleep.
A cube or a food grade jerry are around 24 lt and you can buy them from hardware stores, camping stores and I bought mine from Super Cheap Spare Parts for around $14.
PS . You have a good fermentation fridge there mate with that type of temp control , does it hold 2 fermenters.

[stevem]

If you bottle and then try to lager in a fridge then they wont carbonate as the yeast would go to sleep.

So what is different? Why doesn't the yeast "go to sleep" when you lager in a cube or jerry can?

Cheers
Steve

[Guest]

Yes mate the yeast goes to sleep when you cold condition it in a cube . When you finish cold conditioning you take it out of the fridge , bring it back to room temp and then you bottle it. Then the yeast starts to activate with your priming sugar that you put in the bottle and it carbonates.

[NTRabbit]

Mate, you dont lager beer after you bottle . You finish your fermentation in your fermenter and you then rack into another container, then you put that container in a fridge at 2 to 4 deg for a month . Then you bottle , put the bottles away and let them carbonate . If you bottle and then try to lager in a fridge then they wont carbonate as the yeast would go to sleep.
A cube or a food grade jerry are around 24 lt and you can buy them from hardware stores, camping stores and I bought mine from Super Cheap Spare Parts for around $14.
PS . You have a good fermentation fridge there mate with that type of temp control , does it hold 2 fermenters.

I have cold conditioned 2 lagers in this fashion now and neither of them has failed to carbonate. My method involves putting them in the beer fridge for about a month, then taking them out and boxing them up in the shed for a further 3 weeks, more if needed. Works just fine, the only thing it prohibits is dry hopping.

And no, it only has room for one fermenter at a time. I just ran it for a few hours to see what temps i could get, my brothers eletronic thermometer (can see it sitting on top of my 30L fermenter) had it at 9*C.

[Guest]

Yeh sure mate , they carbonate when you bring them back to room temp after you put them in a box in the shed for 3 weeks or longer. Bet if you opened one after you took it out of the fridge it would be flat as a tack.
Not saying that you are doing anything wrong but true cold conditioning [lagering] is done in bulk and not after bottling.

[db]

Can i ask, whats a good temperature to cold condition/lager at?

I have just now acquired a new mini fridge of sorts that can hold an entire 30L carboy inside, but it doesnt go as cold as i was hoping.

what temp is it at ntr?

Its one of those glass door wine chilling fridges, which i can use for wine, or use to brew lagers at steady temperatures. Has a dial that lets me go from about 18*C down to 12*C according to the manual.

Depending on how it handles ambients, i can either use it to keep brewing lagers in summer, or get manageable temperatures for ales. Its in a cool spot so things should be fine.

I guess im sticking to lagering them in the proper beer fridge in the shed after i bottle them, since i havent any idea where to buy a "24 litre cube or food grade jerry" let alone what one is, nor do i have the funds with which to buy them. (the wine chiller was an early xmas gift from my parents)

could be a little too warm to lager in. but it'd make a great brewing fridge imo.. nice score

[NTRabbit]

Not saying that you are doing anything wrong but true cold conditioning [lagering] is done in bulk and not after bottling.

No its not. True lagering is storing the beer in cold conditions to allow it to develop its crisp taste. What vessel its stored in when i do that is irrelevant to the process.

By your argument I can say that you arent lagering your beer either, because you arent doing it out in the natural cold of winter using traditional german containers.

Even if I had the spare cash to buy a 24 Litre food cube, it still presents the same problem - my beers can be anywhere from 19 to 23L in volume, still leaves plenty of headspace. This is quite unfortunate, because the doppelbock im currently brewing calls for a dryhop of hersbrucker before putting it in to lager.

[Guest]

Hey mate, why dont you stick some hops in the bottle with your priming sugar if you want to dry hop.

[Dogger Dan]

If you have no choice but to cold condition after priming then do it. By definition it isn't lagering, however, I wouldn't like to live on the difference in the effect.

I try and not let my beers stand at attention and I try and do what I can with what I have. If it means I can't lager my secondary then maybe I will do what I can to make the effect the same.

The same applies for trub. How many extract the cold break? Not many, we live with it cause the effect is marginal. The same goes with a lot of things in this hobby.

Guess I am just not a purist, but I make damn fine beer.

Dogger

[Grabbie]

he he he love the irony in that photo.

Exercise equipment next to home brew equipment.
Going by the dust I think I know which one is being used more. lol

[NTRabbit]

he he he love the irony in that photo.

Exercise equipment next to home brew equipment.
Going by the dust I think I know which one is being used more. lol

Shhhhhhh

[eremasi]

hey guest ,you sound like an expert on lager,so sign up .we need your input.TOO COOL MATE

[NTRabbit]

Rummaging through my shed, I found an old 25 Litre container that was purloined for my school teacher Aunt from my dad's work in order to hold cordial for those fund raising sleepovers primary schools have.

It claims on the bottom to hold 25L, which if true makes it marginally better than my small "25L" carboy which holds somewhat closer to 28L.

Question; will this lagering container need an airlock, or will the low temperatures be sufficient to prevent its necessity?

[Guest]

Put an airlock in my 24 lt plastic jerry so its rack put in fridge and forget,
didn't put one in my cube so when I rack and put in fridge I just loosen the top every day for about 4 days to let the air out until all activity is finished. When you rack from your fermenter to your cube you stir things up a bit and you tend to get the yeast working again for a few days.
This is good to bring the gravity down another point or two.

[Dogger Dan]

If its plastic I wouldn't use it. difficult to sanitise as its not a smooth surface. You would be better of going with something glass or sticking with the bottle idea especially if you are planning to lager over months.

Dogger

[Guest]

Been using 2 plastic fermenters and 2 plastic food grade containers for cold conditioning for 3 years . Not a problem with "difficulty with sanitizing as not a smooth surface " . Ok , you GUYS in the USA and Canada use glass carboys , that's fine . Down here in OZ we use FOOD GRADE plastic to ferment and cold condition in.