Surly Smoke Lagering

hobie690 · April 25, 2012, 2:52am

Hello!

I just brewed the Surly Smoke partial mash kit this past Saturday. My hope was that it would sit at no more than 58 degrees in my basement, and it looks like it might be 62 or so.

I wrapped a wet towel around it tonight to see if I could bring the temp down a bit, as I don’t have a lagering fridge set up.

Any thoughts or tips on how to make this batch work out? Should I be concerned about the temp? Anyone been there done that?

Thanks!

Tim

nighthawk · April 25, 2012, 11:52am

Tub of water with frozen soda bottles or milk jugs.

Direct a fan on it.

Being Wednesday now, most of the off flavors cause by a warmer temp will have been produced. I might be inclined to not worry about it now.

mplsbrewer · April 25, 2012, 1:51pm

Yep, it’s probably too late know but no worries. Here is a link to a Brewing TV page about lager work arounds in which they reported the Bohemian Wyeast strain as a good ale temperature fermenting lager, much like the California Lager.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2 ... xperiment/

This was a pretty neat episode so I’d watch it is you have some time to kill. At the very least the link is to their tasting notes.

mplsbrewer · April 25, 2012, 1:53pm

Oh yeah, wanted to mention that I did the frozen bottle approach a few months ago and while I maintained temperature in the low 50s I wouldn’t do it again. I obsess over carboys during fermentation more so than most but this was too much for me having to dump new ones in three times a day for weeks.

hobie690 · April 25, 2012, 4:17pm

I had read that article about the experiment prior to posting this thread and thought it was a good article, so thank you.

So I guess I can conclude that although my situation isn’t ideal, that I should still end up with a halfway decent tasting batch of beer??

Thanks,

Tim

nighthawk · April 25, 2012, 9:55pm

Yes it can still be a good beer. Maybe one of your favorites. Let it ride and see what happens.

New Belgium’s 1554 is reported to be made with a lager strain. I’ve made a similar beer and it’s great.

What ever off flavors might be produced may mix with the recipe just fine.

rookie_l_a · April 25, 2012, 11:26pm

[quote=“hobie690”]I had read that article about the experiment prior to posting this thread and thought it was a good article, so thank you.

So I guess I can conclude that although my situation isn’t ideal, that I should still end up with a halfway decent tasting batch of beer??

Thanks,

Tim[/quote]
You’ll be fine.
What yeast did you use? Some are more forgiving of elevated temperatures.

hobie690 · April 27, 2012, 1:18am

[quote=“Rookie L A”][quote=“hobie690”]I had read that article about the experiment prior to posting this thread and thought it was a good article, so thank you.

So I guess I can conclude that although my situation isn’t ideal, that I should still end up with a halfway decent tasting batch of beer??

Thanks,

Tim[/quote]
You’ll be fine.
What yeast did you use? Some are more forgiving of elevated temperatures.[/quote]

This was the yeast:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/wyea ... lager.html

Tonight it’s sitting at 58 degrees after the wet towel trick.

Thanks,

Tim