Simple lagering

[Eduardo]

I know it's supposed to be the whole thing about dropping the temp 5 degree a day etc, but i simply would not be able to do this.

Is there a simple meet in the middle way to do something close to lagering without the need for that amount of temperature controlling and so many drops?

 

[Sly Fox]

My fermenter is in a giant bucket of water in the shed, into which I add blocks of ice made in the freezer every day. In a month or so I'll be able to tell you if it worked. I think the slowly lowering the temperature isn't strictly needed if you gave it a thorough diacetyl rest after fermentation was done.

 

[Midlife]

Good question, I wouldn't mind knowing that as well?... Doing a fridge conversion at the moment.

D

 

[Eduardo]

My fermenter is in a giant bucket of water in the shed, into which I add blocks of ice made in the freezer every day. In a month or so I'll be able to tell you if it worked. I think the slowly lowering the temperature isn't strictly needed if you gave it a thorough diacetyl rest after fermentation was done.

Look forward to hearing just how this turns out as getting down to a temp is no issue it's the slow dropping 5 degrees at a time that will be the problem.

 

[rpt]

If you put the FV somewhere cold it will probably take quite a long time to drop in temperature so it should be ok.

 

[ian808]

I have made a couple of lagers lately and after fermenting at 14 C I moved to garage to lager for 3 weeks don't know temps but should have been cold enough. Got second one in there now

 

[jkp]

I put my first lager outside in a big bucket of water a few weeks back. The temp spread back then was something like -3~8*C. The water temp went from 14*C to 10*C after the first day, then down to 6*C the next and has been at 5 *C since then. So it seemed to work quite well.

The weather is getting warmer now so I'm going to put some ice in there to cool it a bit more.

P.S. is this slow drop required so that the yeast will still be healthy when it comes to carbonation?

 

[rpt]

The yeast continues to clean up during the lagering phase so that's why you don't want to shock it with a rapid temperature drop.