Texas cellar question

Fridge in the garage, cabinet in the house. And whatever I'm planning on drinking ends up in the fridge. Next time I organize my cellar ill take pics.

I need a temp controller, anybody have a link to one they rec?

 

i can help.

 

Deep dark closet mostly except for a couple dozen in the fridge. Try to keep the apt at 70ish F. I desperately need a beer fridge but apartment living precludes that for now. I've had a least 3 cellar cleaning tastings but I've gotten at least 100 new beers since I moved back to Houston from Alabama-probably close to 400 now. I know some have to have gone off but I still have a good stash of lambic/gueze that I've brought back from Belgium that should be OK. And I have these damn friends that keep shipping me beer that I cannot keep up with. Where's a cellar when a man needs one???

 

My house?

 

Mostly its the time to do it. I have pkenty who are willing to help. LOL

 

I'd like to get in on this. I tell you guys what...I know this seems really generous but we won't take no for an answer. Anyone complaining of having too much beer (myself excluded) Starmarvelo and I will take a week or two traveling across the state to personally "help" reduce your cellar contents FREE of charge. Pretty sweet deal, eh? No need to thank us now.

 

You guys really are bastions of humanity...one of the thousand points of light guiding the way.

 

This is the one I have.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=1214

 

15 cft. chest freezer with a temp controller and a medium size fridge with a temp controller.
I still have spill over of about 3 cases of bombers and a case of 12oz.
First world problems.

RANCO ETC 111000, I have 2 that I picked up for a little less than 50$ a piece and took about 5 minutes to wire up. Super easy to use and extremely efficient. Here's an ebay link.

 

Yeah, same thing happened to me. My bf doesn't drink as much as I do (or even want to drink certain beers that I like, other than a quick taste), so I'm having the same first world problem with the amount of beer in my home. Just can't drink it quickly enough!

 

Scratch that. No box, I just acquired a full size beer fridge...for freeeeeeee!

 

Then again, if your AGING, 55 deg prevents it from aging doesnt it?

and yes 70 to 73 is perfect year round, sometimes colder in my apt.

 

The chemical reactions that comprise beer aging are vastly over simplified. That assertion is far too general to really mean anything. Some reactions will proceed at low temperatures, some will proceed very slowly, and some won't proceed at all.

Here's a good resource if you want to learn more about what is happening inside the bottle.

Also, 55 degrees F is a common number tossed around for cellars (that's what I keep mine at because I like to drink them at that temperature). The number is based off of the temperature of caves in France where they would mature wine, so it is kind of an arbitrary figure for aging beer, though it seems to work well enough.

 

Cool, thx for that. I was always told if you kept it cold it just stayed in the state it was in and wouldnt further age.

 

I've tried understanding the complexities of ageing beer but the chemistry of it goes so far above my head that you'd need a telescope to see it, so I have to accept what the 'experts' say (and what centuries of experience have shown) and what I hear time after time is this:

The best temperature to keep beer (and wine) at for extended periods is between 55° and 60°, which also happens to be the ambient temperature of most caves and pub cellars, because some chemical reactions which make changes in beer that our taste buds like (hereinafter called 'good') will happen at a certain rate and some reactions that make tastes we don't like (hereinafter called 'bad') will happen more slowly - but they will happen. It's not so much that it "works well enough", it works optimally and balances out the good and the bad for a desired end result.

When beer is kept at temperatures higher than 60° all reactions will happen more quickly, but that doesn't mean you'll get the same result in a shorter time. It'll change differently because some of the reactions that happen slowly at lower temperatures will speed up more than some of the others, and that goes for the bad ones as well as the good. The end result won't be the same, so don't go putting that can of Ten Fidy on the windowsill thinking you'll get a ten-year-old beer in a couple of months.

If you keep a beer in the fridge it will change so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, with one or two exceptions such as hop flavour, which will diminish over time no matter how cold you keep it, but oxidation can still occur given enough time, and without the benefit of the good changes.

What's good and what's bad can be subjective. Some people like the oxidised sherry-like notes in decades-old (even hundreds of year old) beers, and I for one would love to taste some of those. There are still bottles of Allsopp's Arctic Ale from 1875 hanging around which are very drinkable, if you like that sort of thing. Maybe I'll bury a bottle of Utopias somewhere and dig it up 150 years from now in a future life.

Just to play devil's advocate and argue with myself: All those barrels at places like Boon, Cantillon and Lindemans aren't in a cellar, they're in a building above ground that gets warm in the summer, cold in the winter, being aged for up to three or four years before being blended and bottled, and I suspect the same was true for the beers that were blended to make Ballantine's Burton Ale which could be aged for up to 20 years before bottling, and probably for those stock ales that the lord of the manor used to brew when a son and heir was born which were kept until he attained his majority at 21, and sometimes longer.

If I had the money (lots and lots of money) I'd set up a brewery that made a beer like Ballantine's Burton Ale. Can you imagine a beer solera?

 

I'm not sure that words like "best" and "optimal" belong in a discussion on beer storage temperatures. There's simply far too many factors to arrive at such a neat conclusion like that. Are we talking about a traditionally produced gueuze at 5% ABV or a flash pasteurized imperial stout at 10.5%? How can these two beers of vastly different composition share the same "optimal" storage temperature? Again, I'm all for 55° F, but that's a loose personal preference rather than a hard and fast standard backed up by research.

I think you're painting too broad a stroke here. Temperature isn't a known factor in many of the associated reactions.

Overall, you seem to be saying that low temperatures corresponds with slower aging, and higher temperatures corresponds with accelerated aging (and some not-so-desirable byproducts). I agree for the most part, but the conversation goes a lot deeper than that. Truly just the tip of the iceberg.

 

With respect, it's not a personal preference, it's what I've learned from people who, by my judgement, know more about the subject than I do, and enough times to convince me there must be something to it, as well as the empirical evidence of having worked in pubs with cellars and spoken to long-time managers and publicans for whom it's accepted knowledge and who passed it on to me. I agree that not all beers will give their best in the same conditions but operating several different fridges or walk-ins is impractical for a lot of people who age beer at home and for most businesses. If you begin delving deeply into it then yes, 'best' is probably not a good word to use for the reasons you said, but again, a lot of us have only one space to work with unless we have room for three or four temp/humidity-controlled dedicated fridges. Not out of the question by any means, and that's a whole realm of geekdom above me, but if you can only manage one space to age your beers there'll be an optimal temperature to get the best results overall. A compromise.

Quite so, but it is a factor and often the easiest one to control, especially if you have a bona fide cellar. What else could be at work on a beer that's being aged? Low humidity can dry out a cork but does it have an effect on the processes and reactions? Really, I want to learn.

Agreed, although I see a somewhat smaller iceberg.

 

Yes, although I could just go upstairs in my brewing area and look at one physically.

 

I didn't mean to say that it was just personal preference for you, I meant to say that it was just personal preference for me. I can see the reasoning behind 55 degrees. It's a middle-of-the-road, best of both worlds kind of a number. I'm just not convinced that there is a chemical basis for 55 degrees. I am, however, convinced there is an anecdotal and preferential basis for 55 degrees.

Accepted and passed down knowledge are my least favorite kinds (not to knock your managers or friends in the industry), so you'll have to pardon the contrarian in me.

What I meant was that there are other factors inside the aging inside the bottle (pasteurized vs. living microbes, low levels of dissolved oxygen vs. high, free radicals, reductive capacities of dark malts, high alcohol) and as a result there can't be a one size fits all temperature, in my opinion. And you're right, it's all about compromise. Besides limiting light exposure and maintaining a reasonable level of humidity, there isn't anything you can do (don't even get me started on waxing bottles ).

Sorry if I piecemealed your response a bit too much. It's easier to respond to specific points, and, let's be honest, I've had a few beers tonight.

Also, if you go to the Draught House tastings I owe you a beer. Discussions on BA usually end up being hate-filled and pedantic or a big circlejerk. Hooray for friendly discourse.

 

O rly? You have my full attention. Please tell me more.