Storing Beer in water?

You could buy ice or ice packs (to keep the water cold) and salt (to keep the water from getting gnarly) or you could just buy an additional mini-fridge (depending how much beer you're storing and for how long, it could actually be much cheaper than buying tons of ice and salt. In fact, if it's a lot, then turning the AC up may still be more cost effective).

Or......

You could stop worrying about the temp your beer is being stored at and realize that, save for some extreme situations, the beer is going to be just fine and dandy sitting in a house that's 75 degrees for a while.

 

you could get a temp controller and use it to keep the fridge at 55-60.

 

The temp is just fine that it is at. Put them in the fridge if your reallly worried. Enjoy after is NOT fermenting any longer. It is conditioning. Good rule of thumb is warmer temps = faster conditioning. Extreme Heat is what your worried about.

 

I'm going to suggest this to my wife (fridge per style). The look on her face will be priceless.

 

As usual that is correct.

 

Agreed.

Truth.

@Warren2621 You are over-thinking this "problem" and creating more headaches, hassle, and possibly adding problems. There are very few beers that benefit from cellaring. Just buy what you can drink in a reasonable amount of time so you don't have to worry about this nonsense. As in, drink your beer fresh like most of us try to do.

If you feel compelled, use that little mini-fridge you said you have. That 10 degree difference between IPA and stout storage is in your head more than anything else.

 

The upper tank in a toilet works well for this when you are poor. Don't put too many bottles in there.

 

LOL!!! I am envisioning a line of fridges, all neatly labelled with the various styles, ideal cellar temperature range, and of course humidity regulators to make sure the labels stay neatly in tact. I bet I can get this all put together for under 10K. My wife is going to be sooo thrilled.

 

Or.... Just buy one of these



Constant 55 for all your beverage needs

Edit - happy to teach people the trick to getting Firestone boxed releases to levitate

 

Is that thing earthquake proof?

 

Happily not a relevant issue in Illinois, but with the door closed, I doubt anything could move around or fall.

It also weighs ~1,500 pounds and has to be on a concrete slab due to the weight, so mother earth may feel free to try her best

 

Options:
1. get a small fridge like they use in college dorm rooms. You can often get them really cheap at the end of a term in any college town.
2. get a cheap ice chest.
3. if the fridge is not big enough for all the beer, then rotate the beers from the fridge to the cheap foam ice chest.
4. If you don't want to spring for the fridge, block ice can take several days to melt in a cheap foam ice chest if youd on't open it much. You can pick up the cheap foam ice chests for $5. Freeze ice in old milk cartons in your fridge freezer and then toss one in the ice chest every few days.

 

It's so beautiful... :fights back tears:

 

Buy a good cooler, put them in there without water or ice. The same way a cooler keeps cold in, it will keep heat out.

 

YES! Post pic of said priceless expression

Trying to sell the Mrs. on an additional fridge has been a herculean task! May just go for it; better to ask for forgiveness.... However, if she were to open the garage door and see three... I'd be out on the sofa licking my wounds for a few days!

Being without a true cellar and only having one fridge, I can empathize with the OP a bit. We're able to keep our place at a steady 70 though. With some 140 beers that I have on hand to drink/trade/cellar I was pretty worried initially as well keeping them at room temps. However, several people more experienced than myself mirror some posts here as well. As long as you keep them in a dark place, away from extreme heat and temp fluctuations, you should be fine where you're at. They'll condition a bit faster than they would at a true cellar temp, but not much faster... Have had stouts age nicely for years like this.

 

Storing beer in water could have repercussions other than the mold or bacteria that could grow. If you have multiple beers from one brewery, when the labels float off of the bottles, you're going to be playing guessing games. Bell's labels especially are loosely glued, and I'm certain that there are other breweries' labels that present this issue.

Really, your concerns about mid-70s temps are much ado about nothing. Beer gets transported in trucks that probably hit ambient daytime temps during the delivery process.

 

Depending on how much beer you are talking about, put a soft side cooler inside of a hardside cooler and swap out frozen milk jugs every 3 or 4 days.

 

You could get a cheap wine fridge used off of craigslist. I have mine set to 55= happy. Holds 36 750ml bottles.

 

you can adjust temp by where you place them in the fridge, and again

will you manage to drink all of those before they turn?

 

@Yargamo - there is a lot of wine in there (about 300 bottles, all the stuff on the sides is wine) and there are only about 70 bottles of beer. Pretty much all of them are Imperial Stouts or Barleywines - splitting a bomber a week with my neighbor we could pretty much clear that out by this time next year