Maibock Question

[manzilla86]

Hi all,

Been a while since I’ve been on the forum (had a kid and stuff (well, my wife had the kid)).

I’ve done about 15 brews, but they’ve all been ales. This winter, I was thinking about making a Maibock. I don’t have any dedicated fridges available to keep the beer in the lager temp range, but I do live in Minnesota where it will be plenty cold enough. My basement is usually around 60-65 degrees during the winter, so my question is this: am I better off fermenting the beer at 60-65 and making a semi “steam” Maibock, or would you get one of those fermenter jackets that heat the fermenter and stick the thing in the garage? I don’t have any experience with those, so I was wondering if they could handle the cold of Minnesota?

I’m kinda leaning toward the “steam” Maibock, so I was also wondering if anyone with more experience knows how that might change the flavor.

Thanks!

[andymag]

You may be able to get closer to the temp needed to ferment (depending on the yeast strain) with a swamp cooler. I would get one of those large Rubbermaid totes that they sell at Walmart, fill it ice wacter, wrap your fermenter with a tee shirt, drop it in the ice bath, and have a box fan blowing on the ice bath constantly. This should make it so you can maintain a temp in the low 50’s; which I believe is perfect for a Maibock. When it comes time to do a DA rest, just remove your fermenter from the ice bath for a few days.

When it comes time to cold condition, you can do that in the bottles, so in this case after the fermentation + DA rest (all in all about three weeks total), you can bottle your Maibock, pop in the refrigerator and let it condition for a few months.

In my opinion that would make a great Maibock. The only thing I forgot to add is be sure to check you icebath temps daily to see if you need to add more ice to maintain a cool temp. Typically, most just freeze those 12 oz water bottles and rotate them out as needed.

Congrats on the little one and happy brewing.

:cheers: