Hi,
Recently moved into a new house, and as such my brewing operations have all been moved outside & into our garage. We live in Southern California, so our garage gets HOT in the summer (think 100F+).
I basically have one temp controlled chest freezer that I use for both controlling fermentations and serving kegged beer. It can hold either 2 6.5 gallon carboys or 4 ball lock kegs, or some combination thereof. Since I only have the one unit, at any given moment I only have either a temp controlled fermentation chamber or a keezer - not both!
Recently, I bottled up a craft malt liquor I made (I know, odd choice, but it was fun to make!). Going into the bottling bucket it was crisp & bright. The bottles sat in my hot garage for 3 weeks, and I cracked one open the other day. I was very sad (but probably shouldn't have been surprised) to find out that the beer was a shadow of its former self. Oxidized, dull, brown and murky. At least my carbonation level was spot on...
I'm thinking that I can't expect to bottle condition delicate beers like this in a garage that gets as hot as mine. I've always been in situations before where I can use an interior closet that at worst gets up to 80F for bottle conditioning, and that's worked decently well for me. Now, however, I'm thinking I may need to bite the bullet and invest in a second keezer - one that I keep at 68F or lower for long term carboy & bottle storage, rather than letting them cook in my garage. I think it might be worth it because I want to start making sours, and it's probably more ideal for them to age long term at cooler temperatures.
Anyway, that was kind of a lot but I just wanted to put this all out there and ask y'all what you would do in my situation, and for those of you who DO have hot garages like myself with no option to move some of your operations inside - what do you do?!
Thanks!