I think I screwed up...

Guys (and gals):

I went to cold crash a pale ale, and think I may have just ruined my beer. I have a freezer in which I do the cold crashing, and I regulate it's temp using a Ranco controller. Well, being the genius that I am, when I put the beer in the freezer, I accidentally left the Ranco's temperature probe outside of the freezer. Now I have a large block of ice, and I have no idea how this is going to affect the final product. To make matter worse, this was to be my entry into a home brew competition on March 7th, and I have only ONE backup (which is an experimental habaner/jalapeno beer, with a low expectation for success).

Have I ruined my beer? Is there anything I can do to salvage the beer?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

Ouch!

I'd thaw it and force carb to see what happens. If you naturally carbonate in bottle you may want to re-pitch a clean neutral yeast to make sure there are viable yeast cells. The yeast can make it through a freeze/thaw cycle but just to CYA, ya know?

No - not bottling. I keg in a sankey, so force carbing is what I normally do. Do you think it's worth kegging, re-pitching, force carbing, and then just letting all the trub come out in the first pint? Or should I just thaw/keg/force it?

Ice Brewed eh? Just like Bud Ice


lol

jk bad joke

I'd thaw, force keg, and hope.

I've had many a beer slushy ice fishing and it always thaws and tastes fine. I'd be cautiously optimistic.

As long as the container wasn't damaged, just thaw it & proceed.

Im pretty sure a lot of Bocks are frozen.

Okay, all seems well. I thawed it out, the color looks great, the aroma is great, and the taste (accounting for the fact that it was room temp and flat) was pretty darn impressive if I do say so myself. What lesson have we learned? ALWAYS CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR TEMPERATURE PROBE IS IN PLACE!

dtbritt said:

... What lesson have we learned? ALWAYS CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR TEMPERATURE PROBE IS IN PLACE!

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And, never, ever, ever, never dump a beer, unless you're positive it's ruined.

(says they guy who dumped 2 gallons of apfelwein vinegar last night. 7 months in the basement with a dry airlock = vinegar city)

Ugh, you froze it? That's a shame. Ship it to me and I'll dispose of it according to HLFB regulations.

For anyone that's interested, freezing the beer didn't have any noticeable negative effects. In fact, the ale took second place in the competition!

congrats for the second place

WOOHOOOO congrats sir.

congrats. you know you could a had 1st had you not frozen it right?

now you just need to come up with some witty name for it that has to do with ice or frozen or something like that!

jds said:

(says they guy who dumped 2 gallons of apfelwein vinegar last night.

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Why on gh0d's green earth would you ever dump apple vinegar? I don't get it.
I pay good money at the health food store for it. I take a shot of it every morning.