Freeze concentration test

So took a growler of porter, stuck it in a pair of tupperware bowls and tossed em in the freezer to try it out. Placed them in at about 2:30pm and just cleaned out the ice and taste the remaining...uhh beer (?) Well it's got a hell of a kick thats for sure.

I know by all technical reasonings it is no longer beer but I was bored. I think next time I would rather use a good flavorful barley wine instead to do this with.

Just thought I would share and I will get some photos tomorrow.

RobertRGeorge said:

Pointing out that freeze distillation is illegal in the US, and as such discussion not allowed on this board. Contact your congress critter to get the law changed. Also be aware that digital photos may have metadata embedded that include the geographical location of the picture.

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No, it's not illegal. This has been argued many times on this board, and last time I checked, discussion about freeze distillation was still permitted here.

Freeze "distillation" is a misnomer... "freeze concentration" is the more accurate term. And again, it's legal. If it wasn't, then the BJCP's category/style 5D would be extremely controversial as every single entry would be illegal by definition.

You should really double check before declaring certain topics off-limits. You made the poor guy delete his entire post!

BadSully said:

OK. I am curious now. What are we talking about that we maybe shouldn't be talking about? Or am I going to have to google it?

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A lot simpler than I thought but heres the wiki on it

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing#Freeze_distillation

BadSully said:

OK. I am curious now. What are we talking about that we maybe shouldn't be talking about? Or am I going to have to google it?

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Eisbeer is OK - it's both legal and OK for this forum. It's the result of "freeze concentration". Many, many threads covering this... just look a the bottom of the page.

Distillation, in which heat is used to evaporate and then re-condense the alcohol from the beer, is not allowed to be discussed on this forum.

The technical (or is it slang?) term for this with wine is "jacking" such as applejack, and it is completely legal in the us. It doesn't always taste great when it's done, but if done correctly it can be alright.

It is still beer when you freeze concentrate, just, well, concentrated beer. As passedpawn said, eisbeer is freeze concentrated dopplebock that is definitely still beer. On the other end of the quality scale, ice beers like keystone ice and natural ice are also freeze concentrated.

The guys from Brew TV did an episode on this Called "Eis is Nice": URL:

Please stop threadjacking (pun intended) with the legal debate. Take that to another thread. We do allow the discussion of freeze concentration on this forum. Please keep the thread on topic.

I tried this once (from a mild, IIRC). It worked, but the flavor was not very good.

Does the ABV for the beer need to be fairly high in order to achieve a better flavor? Most people I've seen do this with barley wines or RIS. Or are some styles just better than others for this method?

I did this with some failed barley wine and the few bottles of it I have left are great.

My favorite thing to freeze concentrate is apple wine. This is commonly referred to as "apple jack". (No it does not taste like the cereal or the JD and pucker shot.) I actually have about 3 gallons that has been sitting on whiskey bbl chips for about 3 weeks now and I will start the freeze concentration of this soon.

So I finished it off this morning with a second cleaning then back into the fridge with the finished product.
I essentially took 64oz of Porter and created approx. a 16oz glass (I think) of concentrated beverage.

Tasted it off a spoon and it was definitley stronger than I thought it would be both flavor and alcohol wise, not sure how to test final alcohol numbers on this kind of thing so I will be looking into that a bit.

As I said before I think I would like to try this again with a larger quantity of a good Barley Wine because although the flavor is good I think it would be better with a more complex layering of flavors than the Porter I used contains.

Again I will post a pic a bit later of the final product, I forgot to take pics of the iced beer and original quantity...but we alll know what a growler holds so we can use our imagination there. The ABV for the Porter is approx 5.1% so not a real strong Porter to begin with on the alcohol content scale but enough for testing purposes.

I think the popular wisdom is to use lighter-flavored beers to make eisbeer. The idea is that you are concentrating the flavor as well as the alcohol. So, if you start with something that is very heavy, it will only get worse.

I used a mild. A bitter, IRA, or similar would be good choices also. I'm sure I read that in BCS or heard it on a podcast. I'd research the method of making these before I went much further.

passedpawn said:

I think the popular wisdom is to use lighter-flavored beers to make eisbeer. The idea is that you are concentrating the flavor as well as the alcohol. So, if you start with something that is very heavy, it will only get worse.

I used a mild. A bitter, IRA, or similar would be good choices also. I'm sure I read that in BCS or heard it on a podcast. I'd research the method of making these before I went much further.

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But at the other ends, as the basic brewing guys showed a really high grav, strong beer like a barleywine can benefit from being concentrated.

I thought they mentioned though that IPA's weren't a could candidate because it throws the bitterness out of balance, it just becomes too bitter to be pleasant.

I'm on a porter kick these days...I think that would be interesting to do.

I would like t try this, but I dont have any uncarbonated beer at hand. Could i use a couple of bottles of homebrewed (carbonated) porter?

PowPow said:

I would like t try this, but I dont have any uncarbonated beer at hand. Could i use a couple of bottles of homebrewed (carbonated) porter?

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Mine was carbonated

I would really like to try freeze concentrating a thin flavored and low abv (6%) chocolate stout that has been in bottles for 3 months. Freezing the bottles does not sound like it will work out...so should I open and pour this into something else, a bucket perhaps?

ColoHox said:

I would really like to try freeze concentrating a thin flavored and low abv (6%) chocolate stout that has been in bottles for 3 months. Freezing the bottles does not sound like it will work out...so should I open and pour this into something else, a bucket perhaps?

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I don't think the usual oxidation issues would necessarily show up since you are going right into the freezer, so I carefully pour a gallons' worth into a milk jug, invert it and freeze it.

ColoHox said:

I would really like to try freeze concentrating a thin flavored and low abv (6%) chocolate stout that has been in bottles for 3 months. Freezing the bottles does not sound like it will work out...so should I open and pour this into something else, a bucket perhaps?

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I put mine into a couple of 26oz Tupperware containers with press on lids and it worked fine. If you have the space and are doing larger quantities then a bucket that has been cleaned out well and sanitized would also work fine, just cover it with plastic wrap or a lid that will allow some flex in it.

Sorry meant 38oz containers

Thanks Revvy and Nightshade. Can the ice be lifted out? Or strained out then? Does it freeze in a loose matrix or on the surface maybe? I will take some pics of the process tonight.

Revvy said:

But at the other ends, as the basic brewing guys showed a really high grav, strong beer like a barleywine can benefit from being concentrated.

I thought they mentioned though that IPA's weren't a could candidate because it throws the bitterness out of balance, it just becomes too bitter to be pleasant.

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I said IRA, not IPA. Lagers are great too because they are typically more dry and aren't usually made with much heavy caramel malts.

ColoHox said:

Thanks Revvy and Nightshade. Can the ice be lifted out? Or strained out then? Does it freeze in a loose matrix or on the surface maybe? I will take some pics of the process tonight.

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Yes, quoting myself. I found a thread that used a bucket for this process.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/alternative-method-freeze-concentration-364872/

I just poured 12 oz of my Tiki Ridge Porter into a 16.9 oz plastic gatorade bottle and popped it into the freezer. Wonder what will come out. LOL

Nightshade said:

Mine was carbonated

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Okay, perfect. One liter of porter in the freezer now

It's a really heavy, quite bitter porter with loads of dark malt and cacao powder. It will probably be undrinkable

C-Rider said:

I just poured 12 oz of my Tiki Ridge Porter into a 16.9 oz plastic gatorade bottle and popped it into the freezer. Wonder what will come out. LOL

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Two hours later I poured 4 oz of "liquid" into a small glass. It's now warming up to drinking temp. I will then open another bottle and compare the two.

Well tried it out bout an hour ago. The iced beer didn't taste as good as the regular porter. Think it tasted a bit stronger, but not overly. Pau w/that experiment.

Here is a shot of a shot of the finished product

http://instagr.am/p/TcA5BVOyR2/

It is considerably darker and much stronger malt flavor than I began with.
Flavor was not as much like liquor as I had expecyed, I am sure it was partially due to not knowing what to expect but it was definitley a more pronounced alcohol flavor to it.

What I would do different:

Use a beer with higher alcohol and lighter malting profile barleywine is a strong contender as well.

Instead of setting it and checking it 6hrs later I would instead check it every 2hrs and skim the ice off the top possibly for a better yield.

Overall it is a horribly inefficient process but the results are intriguing mostly as a process of finding the right balance of malts, alcohol and yield potential.

More testing is required

I tried it on my stout last night and posted some pictures in the thread I linked to a few posts previous.

A buddy of mine accidentally did this. He had a Pilsner on tap and apparently the freezer was too cold because when the keg cashed there was a ton of frozen ice crystals about half way down the keg all along the outside. It was pretty tasty and we did notice there was something going on, just weren't sure what.

So you freeze the beer and then what? Posts aren't clear. I think people are too drunk to explain the beauty of this process.

This post helped me decide what to do with some apple cider I had bulk aging for a couple months. I made Apple Jack.

BadSully, after freezing it, you either scoop out the ice, or pour out the liquid that doesn't freeze. Alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water so you end up with the original product with much less water and therefore a higher concentration of alcohol and flavor compounds.

I have been meaning to make a tut for this since I have the technique pretty well perfected. I never get decent results with multiple "passes" and it seemed like a PITA waste of time. YMMV.

Super sort no pic version.

1. Use a sanitized 1.5L wine bottle and fill it 1/2 full like you would if you were bottling it. (You can use a smaller one but it is a waste of time IMHO. I actually use x2 1.5L wine bottles because it makes the process faster and if freezer space wad more available I would use more.)

2. Carefully press a cork into it by hand as far as you can. This should leave some cork not in the bottle. (FYI I like the synthetic cheap corks because they last a long time.)

3. Lay the bottle down in a freezer so the NECK has minimal/no liquid in it.

4. Wait 12-24 hours. If it is slushy wait longer. When you pic up the wine bottle by the neck the ice should be frozen enough to stay in place when vertical and look like it is frozen.

5. Remove cork and pour into a 2L Erlenmeyer Flask or some sort of "jar". Then invert bottle so that it stands on it's own. (I prefer my 2L flask because when the wine bottle opening gets submerged it just backs up into the wine bottle. The flask will hold the bottle opening out of concentrate for about "4 batches" starting with 17% ABV wine.)

6. Wait. LOTS of color will drain into the bottle. I leave mine for about an hour or until it looks like brilliant white snow and it seems like you have gotten what you want.

7. Carefully remove the bottle and set it aside with the cork in it.

8. What is in the flask is your concentrated beverage.

9. I try to mix wines that I do not care much for into the left overs that were in the bottle and a small amount of Irish whiskey. It is very "dry" and goes well with cheese but is thin and watery so is great for session drinking.

I Just aged 3 gallons of mom's dry applewine on some Jack Daniels whiskey barrel chips for 6 weeks and concentrated it down to just over a gallon. Since I did not remove all the alcohol and sugar in the frozen liquid I estimate that I probably came in just under doubling my ABV to 25%-30%. Then I added about 500ml of Jim Beams "Devil's Cut" (45% ABV) to it. While each step of the way it tasted different, I REALLY like the end product as a "sipping drink" more than I liked any of the individual components that much.

Now, I need to get a glass... I like it "neat".