I am intrigued by this recipe but don’t want to hold up my fermentation chamber for 2+ years. how much can the temps vary over the 1 year primary and 1 year secondary?
They can vary greatly over the course of seasons but it is best if they don’t jump around quickly. Lambics are brewed in a very rustic fashion in Belgium (at least in the most traditional breweries like Cantillon) with little/no climate control. What you don’t want is a situation where you are getting drastic fluctuations day to day. As long as you don’t go above 80 and below 50, I wouldn’t worry too much.
IDEALLY I think a steady temp in the mid 60s is best, but certainly not a requirement for the style.
ambient air temps should be around 76F and will get down o 68F at night.
that would be the largest delta in the winter. during the summer it varies less.
do you think that is acceptable?
IMO an 8 degree drop in ambient temps from day to night isn’t suitable for any beer. If you said in the summer it would get up to 76 but in the winter it would drop, that’s a different question. I thought you were asking about temp fluctuations over the course of a year, not a single day.
during primary fermentation for a month or two I can keep it within a degree. but after that for extended aging I was hoping temp fluctuations would not matter quite as much. perhaps the daily deltas in long term storage would be closer to 4 degrees
8* swings in ambient is not going to result in 8* swings in the beer temp. You can decrease it even more by just putting the beer in a simple swamp cooler. By doing this you are increasing the thermal mass to make it even less susceptible to change it temp due to ambient. With 5 gallons of beer sitting in another 3+ gallons of water I would be surprised if the beer temp changed at all over the course of the day.
