beersicle

[sunbeam]

A couple weeks ago I brewed a big ~9 gallon batch of Gavin's Glorious Pilsner for a party coming up in June. Everything went way too well. Hit my numbers all the way through, fermented at 53F in the freezer plugged into Inkbird control, packaged into two 5 gallon cornys and dropped it to 33F at which point the family began using the lagering freezer to keep leftovers. Then disaster struck, my MIL went to the cellar to get the turkey soup and knocked the temperature probe out of the freezer. 36 hours later I go to the basement and see the display is at cellar temp. Beer is frozen solid! Now I'm reading the general consensus is RDWHAHB, but what is the best way to proceed here? Should I thaw it quickly at warm temps, leave it in the cellar, set the cooler to somewhat above freezing and thaw it very slowly? Now some say the beer is unaffected, some report an improved beer with excellent clarity, and a few ended up with a stratified beer that never fully recombined, like a strong beer at first that gets watery as the keg is dispensed. What should I expect with this situation? Right now the cooler is unplugged and lid open, cellar temp is 53-56 F. Any guesses how long to thaw it?

 

[sunbeam]

Update. Slowly thawed beer over a few days, gave the keg's a shake and let lager for a couple weeks, then put on serving pressure for a couple more. It's now VERY good!. No harm done and caught it before any damage was done to the kegs

 

[Sparkncode]

Yep my beer I froze a while back came out ok too. I knocked the temp probe out myself so no one to blame but myself.

Like you my beer and keg both survived. I just let mine warm up slowly too.

That reminds me i need to route my sensor into my kegerator through a hole next to the one I drilled for the CO2 line. After careful investigation of service manuals and careful drilling and poking in foam i found a safe place to drill into the compressor compartment without harming any refrigerent lines so i can prevent the occurance in mine. Comming out the door seal is too riskey for accedental probe lyeing on the floor. Entering from the back of the fridge through the compressor compartment is accessable from the back but wont be able to fall out.

If course this is on a f&p active smart so if you decide to drill do your own research on where the refridgerant lines run on your fridge