First brewing attempt.

[Casper1888]

Hello all. This is my first post after recently joining your group. Please excuse my naivety. I've just 'racked' my Coopers lager into a 'second fermenter' and put it in my garage. I'm in no immediate haste to bottle and drink and want to leave it there to mature. However I live in Scotland and its gets pretty cold some nights, hell daytimes too, and I'm a little concerned it could freeze or get slushy. Would this damage the beer and therefore should I take action to prevent this? If so, what? I'm not sure that bringing it into the house to and fro I'd a good idea either due to big temp fluctuations. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Firstly if you're maturing in bulk I'd make sure you have very little headspace, as you will have some oxygen in your secondary fermenter.

If it was me I would leave it out there but insulate it with a neoprene jacket or something. Even an old duvet would do.

Someone with more experience will have some better advice I'm sure.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Your lager will be absolutely fine down to zero degrees, many people store their lager at this temperature deliberately to help clear it and preserve it.

Even a degree or two below zero is okay for a few hours because the alcohol acts as an anti-freeze. If you have a ustained temperatures below zero it might be good to have some low-level heat. Many people use an old second-hand fridge to put their keg/bottles in along with a small tube heater and an Inkbird temperature controller to switch the fridge on/off and the heater on/off to maintain the set temperature.

 

[crowcrow]

It will e fine from the temps, in fact that will do it good! But as above I'd get them into the bottle ASAP. Since this is a kit, and I assume you don't need to leave it to dry hop, the sooner it is in a bottle the better and the sooner it can bottle condition - the remaining yeast will drop out (nicely in the cold!) and you'll have great clear beer to drink.

That said at times I've left beers in the first bucket (I don't bother transferring, just adds risk of infection) for other a month and had good beer at the end. But you are leaving it open to the risk of infection and oxidation in the big bucket.