How important is temperature control during aging?
I’ve just bottled up a couple of brews after bulk aging for 6-9 months (kept that part short so I can use those vessels on new brews). The bottles are currently sitting on my air conditioned house, so pretty constant temperature (60 - 75 °F) year round.
For space saving, I think I want to move them to my crawlspace though. It is far less consistent on temperature (probably 45 - 90 °F for yearly range) with daily temperature swings regularly hitting 20-30 °F throughout the day.
I don’t intend to crack the bottles open until the holidays though, so if I moved them, they’d be setting through the worst of summer and a pinch of the lighter part of winter at least.
But its my understanding brews are really only sensitive to temperature during brewing. For instance, I wouldn’t question if a pallet of wine bottles I buy at the liquor store were left in a hot ware house for a month during peak summer, so long as they’re out of the sun.
Is my logic valid? Would/could this be damaging to the brews?
Temperature control during cellaring is important. Wild swings aren’t great. I wouldn’t buy wine that’s been stored hot if I can help it. The temperature is generally less of an issue than the changes in temp from what I understand, but the temperature should be in a range between roughly 8-18 degrees from what I recall.
Is that 8-18 degrees of a temp swing per day? Or do you mean that for an overall "should generally be kept at the temperature it was bottled +/-18 degrees?
Saw an old forum post with similar question (but no definitive answer for my situation) where someone suggested using an insulated box to reduce temperature swings. Do you think that’d work/help in my situation?
It should be a steady stable temperature in that range. Not much higher, not much lower