Dedicated Lagering Fridge?

So I have only brewed two homebrews, and I am reading how to lager. After primary fermentation of a lager, I have read that you "lager" the lager by dropping the temp into the 30's. So to keep a pipeline going, do you have a dedicated fridge to lager? Which would mean for some people 3 fridges, 1 for lagering, 1 for primary fermenation, and 1 for kegging/drinking? Otherwise you could not keep the pipeline moving..

Or maybe I don't have a firm grasp of lagering yet.

To keep a pipeline of nothing but lagers in kegs you would need 3 fridges. I have a kegerator and a laggering freezer that has a temp controller on it. I put out one lager about every 4 months. The rest of the pipeline is ale.

you are going to need temperatures between 32°F and 38°F for around a month, so yep you will need some sort lagering fridge, chest freezers with temp control are the best. Getting in to lagering can get expensive; many homebrewers stick to ales for this reason.

I only have a fermentation fridge and a keezer. I brew a ton of ales first and generally have a backlog, like 30-40 gallons (I have 15 corny kegs), and then I brew lager and let a lager sit for a while. It would be nice to have another dedicated lagering fridge, but isn't necessary. Once the lager is done, I rebrew for the kegs I have empty. I have been keeping about an average of 20-35 gallons around at all times.

Thanks for the views into your routine. At the moment I only have a mini-fridge that will hold one fermenter at a time, that is why I am researching what type setup and routine I want to have in the future. At the moment I am using Tap a Drafts, no kegs yet.

Sometimes it is not a bad idea to take a deep breath, look around a bit, talk to some people like you are doing and plan for the long term.

I do not like to purchase anything twice. Therefore I make certain, at least the best I can of planning equipment purchases that will get me to where I want to go. I buy it flexible enough to expand my brewery. As a result it was almost seamless for me to move to a ten gallon system.

Once I got a handle on controlling fermentation temperatures, my beer was heading in the right direction, consistently. Therefore, my first fridge is set up as a fermentation chamber. Ten gallons, temp controlled.

After a year of using a mini fridge as a kegerator with one keg and a picnic faucet, I am soon to build a tower with my newly acquired mini fridge. The old one will serve as a fermentation chamber. Now I have expanded my production capabilities.

But this has all gone through a process. The purchase of a temperature controller mounted on my friends frig until I got my own. Build, step by step requires planning. IMHO, and for me, that is part of the hobby I enjoy.

Previously, I had one dedicated lagering fridge - a mini fridge with temp control. The downside is that you can only do one lager every 9-11 weeks - 3 weeks at 50° or so, 2-day d-rest, and then set it for lagering temps and let it go for 6-8 weeks.

I have a chest freezer now. So now I can basically do a lager every 3 weeks. 3 weeks in the mini fridge at 50° and then lagering in the chest freezer.

I brew few lagers a year and I only use 1 freezer. Its used for fermentation of lagers, lagering and dispensing beer at a same time. I can fit 4 kegs and 2 carboys in it and it works great. I lager and serve my beer around 38-40F

I have 3. 2 stainless fridges (food, kegerator) and a chest freezer (Fermentation)with temp control. But I got 2 of them for free! Not nice on the old electric bill though...

crj5000 said:

? Which would mean for some people 3 fridges, 1 for lagering, 1 for primary fermenation, and 1 for kegging/drinking? Or maybe I don't have a firm grasp of lagering yet.

Click to expand...

I think your grasp of it it right on. I have a temperature controlled fridge for fermentation, a temperature controlled deep fridge for lagering and a keggerator for dispensing, so I'm able to keep an ample supply of lagers going

Looks like I will be slowly adding equipment as I find deals, and work my way up to different setups. First thing I have to do is make a good beer, as I am still waiting for my first ale extract to condition. I have a pipeline going now, so hopefully this is the only time I will have to wait for my brew to finish without having a brew to drink.

you can do it with 2. One for fermentation, then a large chest freezer to serve from and lager. I think you can only do this with cornies though bc you can fit so many more compared to carboys

Hopefully I don't offend anyone by bringing up this old thread but I have been thinking about doing this lately. Currently I can only lager one beer at a time as my kegerator can only fit 5 kegs (I serve 4). I would like to be able to serve more lager beers but only being able to lager one beer at a time is limiting. Does anyone know approximately what size chest freezer I would need? I would like to fit 3 ball lock cornie kegs with a 5lb co2 bottle for carbonation while lagering.

I think that my ferm chamber is a 7 cu ft freezer. I will check when I get home. It will fit four corneys and a small co2 bottle. Wish that is was bigger though as I can only fit one bucket, unless I put the second bucket on the hump without an airlock.

Get a 2nd fridge from e-bay or craigslist and do this:


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/project-lager-chamber-407935/