right, so i've been getting in to my beer lately, and my 'cellar' (cupboard under the sink) is slowly but surely filling with beer i'm trying to age a bit.
however after doing a bunch of reading, i'm now slightly concerned that the temperature is a) too high and b) varies too greatly for effectively ageing the beer.
i would love to just go and buy a wine fridge, however beeradvocate.com tells me that i shouldn't store beer on its side.
anyone in darwin keeping a beer cellar? or is it too hard? would be very interested in hearing what other people do.
Indeed beer is said to be best stored upright. Importantly for bottle conditioned beer - which is the only beer worth cellaring.
Like wine, it also needs a relatively consistent temperature, and a relatively low temperate. If you're getting large fluctuations in temperature or at any point that temperate is above about 18 degrees, I wouldn't be keen to leave it there for extended periods of time.
Because of Darwin's climate I doubt even a basement would provide the best environment. It's probably best to buy a large second hand fridge and modify it with a temperate control unit.
As rec mentioned the main thing for cellaring is constant temperature. Fridges aren’t normally very good at this but if do use a fridge make sure what you are cellaring is the only thing stored in there so the door stays closed.
As for the temperature the higher it is the faster things age. I know with wines about 12degrees is good as this has a reasonable aging rate and leaves your reds at about the right temp to be drunk after decanting and left to sit for a bit, it's not too warm that you can get your white down to <7 degree quickly.
The reason for the constant temperature is the bottles “breath”, the liquid contracts and expands sucking in air because the corks/lids while being water tight are not air tight.
As for bottle on their side only issue I can see is disturbing the particles when you right the bottle. You have the same issue with wine stored on its side the solution is to not drink straight from the "cellar" let the bottle settle upright for an hour before drinking/decanting.
The vintec wine fridge I have allows me to store bottle upright if I want I just fit a lot more wine in the fridge storeing on its side.
Temperature is definitely more important than being upright, I think. I'd go as far as to say most bottle conditioned beers drink better with the sediment poured rather than left in the bottle anyway.
As I said there are wine fridges you can keep beer upright in looking at mine I could fit about 3-4 dozen stubies upright and still have room for a couple of bottles of wine for the missus. That is a 40 bottle vintec wine fridge.
I lager/age most of my beers in a modified chest freezer and use a modified fridge for fermentation. However, I've successfully cellared many brews (one in particular for a year), by keeping them in my downstairs workshop. The house slab temperature stays around 23-26 all year round and has had no ill effect on any of my ales, keeping in mind some beer types age better than others. So my cheap suggestion would be store on the floor/slab away from light but where air moves, else find a second hand chest freezer and add an external temperature control unit.
There's definitely no absolute truth that higher temperatures will necessarily have an ill effect on the beer. As Fleshy describes, 23-26 has produced good results for him. But in higher temperatures you couldn't keep it for as great lengths as you could something at cooler temperatures. And of course; aging a beer in warmer temperatures for shorter times will produce a different tasting beer to the same one kept at lower temperates for greater time.
The almost-certainty is that if there are large fluctuations in the temperate you almost always have a bad result. The greater the fluctuations, the worse off you'll be. This isn't even a subjective matter, it's science, and is all about the chemical reactions taking place inside a bottle.
Very smart people over hundreds and thousands of years have worked out that the best temperature for the best results is approximately 13 degrees Celsius depending on specific beverage, and will also maximise the potential length of storage. It's not even about being "cool enough", it's about a sweet spot between cold and hot - because it can't be too cold either, otherwise desired reactions won't be taking place and you'll stunt its development.
Finally, darker brews, dark ales and the like, hide the effects of higher temperature better than others so you can get away with a little more.
Quote from rec;399366: Very smart people over hundreds and thousands of years have worked out that the best temperature for the best results is approximately 13 degrees Celsius depending on specific beverage, and will also maximise the potential length of storage. It's not even about being "cool enough", it's about a sweet spot between cold and hot - because it can't be too cold either, otherwise desired reactions won't be taking place and you'll stunt its development.
you lie! Celsius has only been around since the man himself died in 1744! Thousands of years indeed! - this casts your entire argument straight into the bin! *whpisH!*
sorry, bored waiting for windows to install on a server...
i'm thinking the temperature in my cupboard shouldn't fluctuate too much, although hard to tell i guess. i might steal a thermologger from work and monitor it over a day or so.
the beers in there at the moment are all quads, and some other stuff on the way (rasputin, la terrible, mc chouffe).
Quote from Mungus;399370: i'm thinking the temperature in my cupboard shouldn't fluctuate too much, although hard to tell i guess. i might steal a thermologger from work and monitor it over a day or so.
A day won't give you any type of accurate representation of if its a good location long term. A year of thermo-logging would. :)
For a more simple and easily reversible solution to fridge temp control I would recommend a "Fridgemate" (Temperature Controller - Fridgemate (Manual Heating/Cooling) - Product Details - CraftBrewer) type unit. This is pretty easy to wire up (get a 'leccy if in doubt and DONT ZAP YOURSELF!!) But yeah, after 1 year in a cool (relative in Darwin) dark environment the Chernobyl beer was still freaking awesome and still improving in the bottle.
One of the other advantages you should get out of wine fridge is lack of vibration but that in always the case as cheep wine fridges are nothing more than a beer fridge with a glass door and thermostat.