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.
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.
