I have an altbier in secondary and the only place I can use to drop the temp is the garage - I live in Minnesota air tem outside ia around -1F - the temp in the garage is about 33F up until the temp of the carboy dropped off the bottom of the sticky thermometer scale it was running about +5 over the air temp in the garage.
it is off the cemetn floor on scrap wood and covered with a coleman camp sleepingbag
my best guess is that it is at about 37F right now
when should I bring it in?
Well you do not want to freeze your beer (Haze issue).
Because beer has some amount of alcohol I would not go lower then 30F.
No worries for now - little warming trend and the garage temp is is around 33-35F
I used the bottom 1/3 of a 55 gallon drum. Place the carboy in the drum with water up to the 1/2 mark on the carboy. Drop a submersable pump used for summer outdoor ponds etc. Then using an aquarium heater and blankets begin regulating the heat.
Works great here in Packerland. BTW, when are the Vikings going to move? ;D
for best results closest to freezing you can get. You should be fine.
Also there isnt enough alcohol in beer to keep it from freezin or even sloshing up. Never put a beer in the freezer to chill and forget it? It will freeze. I think 32 is ok if not for very long periods of time as the beer wont reach that temp for a couple of days I would think.
That’s because a household freezer is around 0°F. A 5% ethanol solution freezes at about 28°F.
edited by mod.
thank you for the help with temp calculation.
By the way from time to time I freeze out post on the keg in my fridge.
It does not freeze the whole keg thou.
Actually, freezing your beer, at least to the slush stage, can be good for it. That’s what ice beer is, and it’s more than a marketing gimmick. It can drop out some of the tannins and polyphenols, making a smoother tasting beer. Chill haze will develop at temperatures above freezing, and tannins and polyphenols are part of chill haze.
With commercial ice beer (has that stuff disappeared?), a small amount of ice is filtered out, resulting in about 1/2% higher alcohol, but unless you are making an eisbock, you can just let it thaw.
The late George Fix spoke about this at the MCAB II technical conference in St. Louis about ten years ago (although it might have been at the previous conference in Houston). I am currently lagering a Oktoberfest that I kept on the back deck for a few days while the temp hovered in the low 20s F until it I could hear slush in the cornies, then brought it in to the fridge, where it is currently lagering at about freezing (32F).
All that said, altbier is traditionally lagered at higher temperatures than lagers, at about 40F. Lower won’t hurt, though.
Jeff
I have frozen an APA recently and didn’t see clarity issues. But I also racked the liquid portion away from the ice before allowing it to warm up.
Kai
I am referring to “Brew Strong: Beer Haze With Dr. Bamforth”
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/572
You made IceAPA and your beer is clear because you rack it off to the another vessel and left ice behind.
Listening to Charlie Bamforth will have to wait until I hve more time, but he’s always worth it.
I did find a few references to George Fix and ice brewing. I don’t see anything to confirm what I remembered from his talk (it was MCAB I in Houston in 1999) that allowing the slush to thaw retained the benefits, but that still may be the case. Perhaps the tannins, polyphenols and proteins that are trapped in the ice complex and drop out.
Anyway, here are a HBD post from Louis Bonham (MCAB conference organizer), a reply from George, and an undated web article from George (I guess that his widow, Laurie, is keeping it online):
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3118.html#3118-3
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3120.html
http://home.att.net/~GeorgeJFix/lageringarticle.htm
I went to Amazon to see if George had got his second edition of “Principles of Brewing Science” (mentioned in his article) published before his death and good ole Amazon informed me that I had purchased it in 2004! That’s a little scary but useful. I found the first edition (1989) and his “Analysis of Brewing Techniques” on my shelves, but didn’t realize I had the second, and I can’t find it. Bummer!
This is a very nice article on lagering. There aren’t many out there that give so much detail on what is necessary and what is not.
I also found the comment about natural vs. forced carbonation. This is another interesting subject altogether where many swear that natural carbonation is better and even more swear that it doesn’t make a difference.
Kai
It just reminds you of what a loss to the brewing community it was to lose Dr. Fix.
He passed away before my time as a home brewer. He left a big mark on home brewing and it is almost impossible not to run into his work, espcially when looking into the more scientific aspect of home brewing. He surely is missed and I would have loved to meet him. He was even living in Massachusetts too.
Kai
I never had a chance to meet him, either, but he certainly had an impact on my brewing. He was the first person I ever heard mention batch sparging.
George was a great guy the time I got to meet him at the SCHF. Big and full of life and enthusiasm for the hobby and people’s questions.
I inadvertently froze an entire keg of Kolsch once. My initial concern was that I would have haze and flavor issues. After it thawed there was a slight haze but no detectable off flavors. A few weeks later it completely cleared up and the taste was excellent.
As many already know German Eisbock is brought to the freezing point and the ice formation is skimmed off to strengthen the ABV content.