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Hi,

I have seen a few people mention a Lager Cube as part of their fermenter setup. What is it?

Thanks

As far as I know, it's a square container, around 25L, that fits in the fridge better (because it's square rather than round).

"Lager cube" is just another vessel to rack your beer into for lagering in the fridge before bottling. You can use alot of things for this. Big w or Bunnings has some of different sizes. I have three that I use at the moment. (all different) One is a 20lt blue plastic jerry can, another carboy, and a 15lt square cube that had a ESB fresh wort in it.
Cheers, Duane

I think I know the ones - light blue, used for camping. Sitting in the fridge for some time, aren't they hard to clean the "ring" off the top inside? Or doesn't one form?

I dont usually get the scum ring from secondary, but if you do, some unscented no-name bleach or nappysan or neo pink soaked overnight
does the job. Just give a good shake.

I use the 20 litre pail blue plastic containers, they are the tall and thin ones and as they are thinner i can fit a few in the fridge ( they say they are 20 litres but i easily get 22 into 1) They cost around $20 with a tap.

yeah i use these containers just about throughout my process'

i even ferment in them.. the 25L square plastic barrels.. and because i keg, after secondarying the beer stays in that barrel until ready for kegging... so i build up stocks when i can, and can carry about 300L of beer at any one time.

i bought about 20 of them brand new for like 10 bucks each or something..

the scum ring does become an issue, but i use a bent up bottle brush which does nicesly, and yeah,, soak with steriliser

Same. Same. I've got a couple.

Some people (who clearly must have more money to spend on beer making than I do) shun plastic fermenters because the plastic is more porous than glass, meaning that oxygen slowly diffuses into the plastic container, which could spoil your beer.

I've never seen any rebuttal of this argument, so let me dip my oar in and observe that plenty of people bottle their beer in PET bottles which are much thinner plastic than any plastic fermenter that I've seen, and people commonly report that their PET bottled beer is still fine after 12 months. Assuming this to be true (personally, I'd never bottle in plastic, but that's got nothing to do with oxidation), then lagering your beer in a plastic fermenter for a couple of months is probably not going to spoil your beer. It's not in there for as long, the plastic is thicker, and the surface area to volume ratio is much better in the big fermenter than in lots of little bottles.

So, I'll just keep using my plastic fermenters.

Relax, don't worry....

cheers,
Tom