Small Scale Lagering

Why not buy a mr. Beer fermenter and stick it in your fridge?

 

You will give up precision control unless you have a temp control device. And you can't use it on your regular fridge set at 50 because you'll end up with potential food spoilage. You need a dedicated fridge/freezer fora control device.

But, placing your fermentor in a large tub of water on the basement floor away from any device that can fluctuate the ambient temp (furnace, water heater) can give you some control if you regularly place/re-place some frozen bottled water in the tub's water and monitor the temp of the beer to see how many frozen bottles will be needed to get your beer down to around 50 degrees, and then how often to change-out the frozen bottles once they thaw out. A wet towel placed over the sides of the fermentor and draped into the water will also continuously wick up more water and provide some additional moderation.

 

You can make a decent lager if you simply keep the temp within the lager range. Theoretically your idea should work fine, it just seems like a lot of work to check the temp multiple times per day for weeks or months. Remember, lagers take significantly longer to ferment and store (“lager”) than ales.

Speaking of lagers, anyone recognize this?: “I’m a logger. Just up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Been toppin trees.”

 

I used to log in the winter, never topped trees, cut cut them down