Anyone here tried Freeze Distillation/Ice Beer?

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kinkothecarp

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First, I don't know if "freeze distillation" is the right word for what I'm talking about - Ice Beer (like Canadian Ice Wine). I was curious if anyone here has tried to make Ice Beer? One of my friend's father said back in the day he tried it with a trippel and it came out quite good. I'm also curious to what techniques you use.
 
This topic arises from time to time, often provoking a bit of legal debate. In a podcast last year, James Spencer concluded that the procedure is indeed legal in the US. As such, we've been allowing the topic here. Freeze concentration is probably a better term.
 
I know as much as the above poster. I have always wanted to try it, but need some expertise.
 
They sell Ice Wine kits on Amazon; not that you actually do any freezing yourself. But still. I saw the style on the homebrew wiki and want to give it a shot. I read somewhere that in Belgium its quite common. I don't even want to necessarily make the beer stronger with ABV, but rather, concentrate the flavor. Removing the water would essentially do this, correct?
 
kinkothecarp said:
I don't even want to necessarily make the beer stronger with ABV, but rather, concentrate the flavor. Removing the water would essentially do this, correct?
Click to expand...

Freezing a portion of the beer/wine will (1) increase the ABV, (2) intensify the flavor (e.g., maltiness for a beer), and (3) produce excellent flavor and haze stability (6+ months).

If you freeze a non-significant portion of the water (e.g., <= 5%), it's not legally considered distillation but you'll only achieve #3...
 
I'm not sure about the process of making Ice Beer, but there is a difference in the process of making Ice Wine and ..say.. applejack. Ice wine (very good btw) is a concentrate of juice made by pressing the grapes while they are still partially frozen. This yields a higher brix %. Fractional freezing ..or freeze distilling.. Is freezing the fermented product to remove non-alcohol substance, resulting in a higher ABV each time it is frozen.

I've been trying to get in touch with my local ATF office without much luck on an official answer. So far all I've gotten from them, ist that it if the ATF agent believes it to be a distilled product, then it will be handled as such. Maybe you guys have had better luck...
 
I have an eisbock in the keezer right now. I put it in the freezer in a better bottle and let about 25 % turn to ice crystals then put a hop bag over my racking cane and kegged it. I was left with about 1.5 gallons of slush in the fermenter. It turned out fine although a little too smooth.
 
people need to learn the words and use them properly.

dis&#8901;til&#8901;la&#8901;tion
&#8194;&#8194;/&#716;d&#618;stl&#712;e&#618;&#643;&#601;n/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [dis-tl-ey-shuhn] Show IPA
&#8211;noun
1. the volatilization or evaporation and subsequent condensation of a liquid, as when water is boiled in a retort and the steam is condensed in a cool receiver.
2. the purification or concentration of a substance, the obtaining of the essence or volatile properties contained in it, or the separation of one substance from another, by such a process.
3. a product of distilling; distillate.
4. the act or fact of distilling or the state of being distilled.
Click to expand...

con&#8901;cen&#8901;tra&#8901;tion
&#8194;&#8194;/&#716;k&#594;ns&#601;n&#712;tre&#618;&#643;&#601;n/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kon-suhn-trey-shuhn] Show IPA
&#8211;noun
1. the act of concentrating; the state of being concentrated.
2. exclusive attention to one object; close mental application.
3. something concentrated: a concentration of stars.
4. Military.
a. the assembling of military or naval forces in a particular area in preparation for further operations.
b. a specified intensity and duration of artillery fire placed on a small area.
5. the focusing of a student's academic program on advanced study in a specific subject or field.
6. Chemistry. (in a solution) a measure of the amount of dissolved substance contained per unit of volume.
7. Also called memory. Cards. a game in which all 52 cards are spread out face down on the table and each player in turn exposes two cards at a time and replaces them face down if they do not constitute a pair, the object being to take the most pairs by remembering the location of the cards previously exposed.
Click to expand...
 
Teromous said:
I've been trying to get in touch with my local ATF office without much luck on an official answer. So far all I've gotten from them, ist that it if the ATF agent believes it to be a distilled product, then it will be handled as such. Maybe you guys have had better luck...
Click to expand...
Oh boy, you do not want to be on the wrong side of these guys. People end up dead over silly little things....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

Heck, you'd probably be better off growing the green stuff. There it's a fine/jail time.
 
To settle this legal thing, i contacted the ATF here in Denver, and they said something like this "People call us all the time and ask us this. It has never been decided in a court of law whether this process is, in fact, distilling. There is no precedent for homebrewers in Denver as to whether a case has been tried. However, it is very unlikely that Denver has the resources to peruse criminal charges on a case that would probably be ruled legitimate homebrewing by the judge. I would suggest to you that it is, in fact, probably legal, because there has been no precedent set against it. We've been making a distinction to our agents and telling them freeze concentration is legal."

I didn't mean to introduce a legal dispute. Now, I just gotta figure out how to do it! I don't remember where I read where ice beer is common in Belgium, so it could be very well not true.
 
kinkothecarp said:
I didn't mean to introduce a legal dispute. Now, I just gotta figure out how to do it! I don't remember where I read where ice beer is common in Belgium, so it could be very well not true.
Click to expand...

Not too sure about Belgium. It is common in Germany. Eisbock is a freeze concentrated Bock beer. Bocks are big malty lagers that originated in Munich. I'm sure a lot of areas around Germany and Belgium have their own version of freeze concentrated beers in some fashion.

If I were to do it, I'd start out by putting my beer into a corny keg and purging. If it was cold outside, I'd just stick it out there. Otherwise, stick it into a freezer. You don't want to completely freeze it. You want it frozen to a point where the whole thing is really slushy. I'd shake it gently every once and a while to make sure big ice crystals don't form. Once it got to a point where it felt slushy, but not too frozen, I'd put some sort of screen over the corny opening and invert over another vessel. I would drain it until the slush didn't have much color left in it. From there, you could freeze and repeat, or just take the first concentrate.

I hate how the legal dispute gets brought up every time this comes up. If it were illegal, it would be pretty hard to bust. You could just say you accidentally forgot to put the temp controller back on the freezer. Plenty of people use chest freezers as kegerators.
 
I'm planning on brewing a massive stout - over 20% is the goal, AG, we'll see what happens though... And then freeze concentrating it. Should be an interesting project. The batch will only be 2.5gal, so after the freezing I will probably end up with a 12 pack, hah. These legal debates crack me up. Like the ATF is going to bust down your door for brewing an Eisbock.
 
Ichi-Go said:
Yes. Yes they are.

I heard the RIAA goes to every persons house with bit torrent and tazes them. $250,000 dollars for illegal reproduction.
Click to expand...

The RIAA isn't a governmental organization, thus that wouldn't be legal. But anyway, this is really regardless, since I've gotten the go from the appropriate government officials.

Any suggestions? I'll do what the posters above said and let you guys know! Any other help is WELCOMED!
 
Ichi-Go said:
Yes. Yes they are.

I heard the RIAA goes to every persons house with bit torrent and tazes them. $250,000 dollars for illegal reproduction.
Click to expand...

F the RIAA... sharing is caring.
:mug:

Good luck with the beer... sounds interesting!
 
i've been planning to brew a big barleywine and make it eisbarleywine after watching the previously mentioned podcast. it doesn't seem too hard; brew, ferment, freeze, keep a watchfull eye for ice, decant, cork uncarbonated and there you have it...at least that was what i planned.

i can't imagine how this would be too off the mark.
 
I've got some cider fermenting that will go through the concentration process soon while it's still really F'ing cold in Wisconsin.
 
I've had a Scottish Ale of about 5.5% that was frozen the way James & Steve did it on Basic Brewing. It was 32 oz, frozen in a plastic water bottle over night, then thawed to render about 6 oz. I'm guessing, but it was probably around 18%. It was strong, flavorful, flat, chilled, & AWESOME!

Schlante,
Phillip
 
You should def watch the podcast. i don't think anyone posted the link but it is on

www.basicbrewing.com

Go to the podcasts and the video ones. There is an Ice Barleywine at some point. They just froze it and then let it thaw upside down into some kind of vessel. Alcohol will melt at a lower temperature than water, so there will be more alcohol in the melted portion of the "beer". I have not personally tried it but would like to do a small batch of it, like the 32 oz that someone posted about. Perhaps I will try with my Bourban berrel porter. WOO
 
Fill a plastic water jug about 3/4 full with beer.
Put it in the freezer for at least 3 days.
Invert the jug over a large jar and collect half the original volume.
This will take 2 or 3 hours.
The remainder will be mostly water - about 1.001 and less than 1 percent alcohol.
The concentrate will be almost double the original alcohol and have almost all the sugar and flavor.
 
This really is the easiest thing in the world...I did it with a few remaining bottles of braggot that had overcarbonated. I essentially put the contents of three 22 oz bottles in a gallon jug, then put it in the freezer, and when it turned into a slushy, I poured the liquid part into another bottle. I ended up with about a 3-fold concentration (ie, 3 x 22 oz bottles into a single 22 oz bottle). I thus estimated my final product at 33-34% ABV (the original ABV being 11.something%). I had done this sometime last year, and actually just tried the results Sunday when I was brewing...it was really pretty good! It's good enough that I would be willing to try it again with a few bottles of mead, or perhaps one of my stronger beers

I too had gotten the idea from the Basic Brewing podcast...

I can't believe no one has brought up Brew Dog yet...they've make a little niche for themselves with this technique.
 
While not beer I have some experience doing this with the family apfelwein. It does change the flavor of the wine from an apfelwein to a much more fresh apple taste (to me just like you bit into one of the apples) with a decent "burn" on the end.

I have discovered that when doing this it is easy to freeze the 1st time but becomes exponentially more and more difficult. I fill a large wine bottle 1/2 full, lay it down in the freezer and let it freeze solid. (This is normally done overnight.) Then let the contents drain into a large glass mug on the counter until is looks like a snow cone or mostly ice in the bottle. Another poster suggested 2 hours and this seems about right.

After the 1st time the solution should be near 25% or more making it near impossible to concentrate it again at freezer temps. I tried it though and used a funnel with cheese cloth to filter out the ice as it was mostly liquid, the ice at this point looked like it was holding quite a bit of color and was small shavings that would melt fast.

While the above works for wine I would not try this process with beer due to oxidation. You would defiantly want to slightly freeze the beer then rack it vs. let gravity drip it into another container.

IMO this can be expensive AND time prohibitive if using your own brew. Taking into consideration the time it takes to make apfelwein (my families is over 1 year) then you concentrate a batch, I think mom would "tan my back side" if she knew I did that. I am going to guess it would be pretty expensive with barleywine, not to mention the epic PITA racking through ice would be.

I have been thinking about trying out a few $3 or under wines, that do not have nitrates in them, splitting the bottle and freezing concentrating it. I have also thought about doing this with an imperial store bought beer. I will suggest this for others to try. so you can get a good understanding of what it will do to your beer before you attempt this. crying over a $3 bottle of wine or a store bought imperial is a much small tear than a screwed up batch of really good home brew barley wine, IMO.

GL and happy concentration! :tank:
 
I've posted this info several times on here already...


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/freeze-distillation-104882/

The Basic Brewing folks even demoed it as a video here making a barleywine.

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=february-20-2009-barleywine-ice-beer

Here is it in action....

PA170007.JPG


From here;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/mystery-pic-182776/?
 
I'd like to repeat that this works best if you let it freeze totally solid.
Not slushy, not just overnight on the porch.
Three days at zero degrees Fahrenheit.
 
I did this with a bock. I collected half the run-off, which took a bit more than two hours. I put it into a 750ml bottle with a Grolsch-style flip cap, then left it at room temp for three weeks next to the bottled bock that was non-freeze concentrated.

The regular bock was about 7%, so I figure the eisbock is ~14%, give or take. It doesn't taste too hot or alcohol-y. I have tried freeze concentration with wine and that is definitely a problem... but with the eisbock it wasn't an issue.

The mouthfeel was almost viscous... definitely different than the native bock. The mouthfeel reminded me of the ice wines my wife and I tried on our honeymoon in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but it wasn't *quite* as good. Still, a lot better than the un-concentrated beer (not that there was anything wrong with the un-concentrated beer... it's just a normal bock).

The mouthfeel was the only thing that was better. The freeze concentration intensified the hop flavor, so it ended up being too bitter despite the extra sugar that was added before freeze concentration. Why did I add extra sugar? To see if it would carbonate... it did not. Opening it did let out a little CO2 hiss, but that was all. Maybe if I had left it longer it would have carbonated properly, but freezing killed off enough of the yeast that it might have taken months to bottle carb, who knows?

It tasted not very good... too bitter. I'm a bit bummed that I wasted 1.5 L (about 50 oz, or 4+ beer bottle's worth) on this experiment. I did learn a lot, but I think rule #1 is that the beer must be malty, and hops are not an eisbock's friend. Also, if you want it to carb in a bottle you need to add back in some live yeast (maybe a couple ounces of the unfrozen stuff) or wait probably about 7 times as long (21 weeks?).

That's how it worked out for me, YMMV. :mug:
 
kinkothecarp said:
First, I don't know if "freeze distillation" is the right word for what I'm talking about - Ice Beer (like Canadian Ice Wine). I was curious if anyone here has tried to make Ice Beer? One of my friend's father said back in the day he tried it with a trippel and it came out quite good. I'm also curious to what techniques you use.
Click to expand...


According to "Brewing Science & Practice" (2004) The process of icing over beer was an experiment tried by Labatts and a host of other brewers to make a beer concentrate syrup that could reconstituted at the point of sale. Typically the plan failed, but the word association game was played in advertising in the wake.

Locally we call it 'Jacking'... Usually done with cider. Hence the term 'Applejack'. It works well with barleywine too. Works best in an open bucket. Just break the ice and remove.
 
Removing ice by way of freezing is actually called Sublimation, not Freeze Distillation. Technically, "Freeze Distillation" is not a real thing. Distillation is a reaction requiring a condenser. Distillation doesn't just mean to increase the alcohol content or to remove alcohol, but is an an actual chemical reaction involving and requiring condensation.

I didn't find what I was looking for here, but maybe I can help others clarify things. The freeze methods outlined here fall under "Sublimation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(phase_transition)
 
Last edited:
imjrod said:
Removing ice by way of freezing is actually called Sublimation, not Freeze Distillation. Technically, "Freeze Distillation" is not a real thing. Distillation is a reaction requiring a condenser. Distillation doesn't just mean to increase the alcohol content or to remove alcohol, but is an an actual chemical reaction involving and requiring condensation.

I didn't find what I was looking for here, but maybe I can help others clarify things. The freeze methods outlined here fall under "Sublimation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(phase_transition)
Click to expand...

I'm no chemist but I thought sublimation was what certain solids (iodine) do when they evaporate without going through a liquid phase. I believe freezerburn is a case of water sublimating.

Maybe freeze distillation isn't the best term, for reasons you state, but I think it's better than sublimation.

How about "freeze concentration"?
 
passedpawn said:
I'm no chemist but I thought sublimation was what certain solids (iodine) do when they evaporate without going through a liquid phase. I believe freezerburn is a case of water sublimating.

Maybe freeze distillation isn't the best term, for reasons you state, but I think it's better than sublimation.

How about "freeze concentration"?
Click to expand...

You're right about sublimation. This is most definitely NOT sublimation.
 
imjrod said:
Removing ice by way of freezing is actually called Sublimation, not Freeze Distillation. Technically, "Freeze Distillation" is not a real thing. Distillation is a reaction requiring a condenser. Distillation doesn't just mean to increase the alcohol content or to remove alcohol, but is an an actual chemical reaction involving and requiring condensation.

I didn't find what I was looking for here, but maybe I can help others clarify things. The freeze methods outlined here fall under "Sublimation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(phase_transition)
Click to expand...

I think this is the link you were looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing (Fractional Freezing)
 

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