Freezing to boost alcohol?

I have heard of freezing beer after fermentation and removing some of the water to boost alcohol content and flavor. Is there a specific method for this? I only ask because I accidentally added too much water and made a 6 gal instead of 5, making the OG lower than I had intended.

I would not recommend it. Just enjoy your session beer and work on getting your measurements down.

You might want to do a google search for "freeze distillation". A quick wikipedia look shows this:

Today, freeze distillation of alcoholic beverages is illegal in many countries because a number of by-products of fermentation (fusel alcohols), which are mostly removed by heat distillation, tend to accumulate to an unhealthy level in freeze-distilled beverages.

The best-known freeze-distilled beverages are applejack and ice beer. Ice wine is the result of a similar process, but in this case, the freezing happens before the fermentation, and thus it is sugar, not alcohol, that gets concentrated.

Since we won't discuss illegal activities, I don't have anything to add.

I didnt realize it was an illegal practice. I definately dont want to do anything illegal. Thanks for your reply.

You can remove 5% of the total volume legally. This is the maximum for an ice beer.

I also vote for drink it while you plan your next brew and use it as a learning experience.

It is generally referred to as EIS-ing a beer also, such as Eisbock. Here are a few references:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/36/
http://byo.com/recipe/1450.html
http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Eisbock.html

It is not the easiest style to make basically you are making a pretty complex big beer to begin with and adding more steps to the process, and hope that you don't contaminate it in some way. I have seen a Homebrew contest that had an EIS-anything category, I wish I could have seen some of the entries in that one.


Cheers

Vermicous said:

You can remove 5% of the total volume legally. This is the maximum for an ice beer.

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Is that what "ice brewed" means ? You know like "Natural Ice" or "Icehouse" ?

I think so. Molson Ice, Bud Ice, and Icehouse are definitely ice beers. Not sure about Naty Ice.

Naty ice is just plain gross.

So since an eisbock is technically using freeze distillation to concentrate the brew a fair amount, yet is a legitimate beer style, is it legal without a distillation permit? I'm not talking about getting up to super high ABV here, just the style 10% or so. I mean, you can brew a stronger batch than that very easily, especially if you take a look at wines. Personally I would love to tackle this after getting in a few Belgains/bocks for experience, but I don't want the BATF busting down my door if I bring it to a competition, you know?

It's wasted and there's no hope.

Send me your beer for proper (legal) disposal and start over...it's the only option.

BierMuncher said:

It's wasted and there's no hope.

Send me your beer for proper (legal) disposal and start over...it's the only option.

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To make it even more legal, you can send out of the country, to me!!!

Speaking of freeze distillation, there's a vodka called Fris that is distilled using freeze distilation, says right on the bottle. I wonder how they avoid the fusel alcohol buildup.

Probably some sort of filtration. Otherwise that would be the worst hangover possible.

But seriously, can we "legally" make eisbeer? And not just the "don't ask, don't tell" kind of legal.

orfy said:

To make it even more legal, you can send out of the country, to me!!!

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I'll also volunteer to "take care of" any unwanted beer.... =)

5% of the total volume can be removed legally. But really, this will only change a 10% beer to a 10.5% beer.

Which brings the question: will that 5% even be noticeable to the avarege palate?

RadicalEd said:

Which brings the question: will that 5% even be noticeable to the avarege palate?

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I'd say not.

But if you are talking about removing 5% the part removed may be 20°Proof.

orfy said:

I'd say not.

But if you are talking about removing 5% the part removed may be 20°Proof.

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If done intelligently, that 5% removed is probably nearly entirely water. Since I'm into gadgets, I'd probably rig up an ice cream machine like contraption so that the beer forms a slush, and then I'd filter out the slush (ie scoop ice into a funnel with filter paper, let liquid drip down and discard solids). Should be almost entirely water.

I made that post way to early in the morning. ignore it.
I should not post before coffee or waking up.
It's distillation in reverse.

Hahaha, all that happens before coffee is forgiven. Should be an international rule.