Can I Salvage My Frozen Keg of Beer?

[Iowa Brewer]

Hey all,
Just tapped the 1st of 2 kegs of my chocolate stout and realized my external thermostat failed me. My freezer went to deepfreeze temps and the beer in the keg 2 is rock solid. Since it wasn't carbonated (only slight pressure to prevent implosion, would it be okay to do the following?

1. Leave on porch to thaw
2. Add pressure to avoid suck-back
3. Drink

Or has the freezing process ruined it?
I think I know the answer, but am hoping.
Thanks!

 

[Broken Crow]

As long as the keg isn't damaged, 1.Leave on porch to thaw. But: Once it has thawed, plug in your CO2 at serving pressure and check for leaks. You may want to give it a few days as it may have lost a bit of carbonation.
That's how I dealt with it once and I was lucky there was no damage to the keg...mind you, mine was only partially solid.
Hope for the best... I'll cross my fingers for you.

 

[Iowa Brewer]

As long as the keg isn't damaged, 1.Leave on porch to thaw. But: Once it has thawed, plug in your CO2 at serving pressure and check for leaks. You may want to give it a few days as it may have lost a bit of carbonation.
That's how I dealt with it once and I was lucky there was no damage to the keg...mind you, mine was only partially solid.
Hope for the best... I'll cross my fingers for you.

Thanks, Broken Crow! Will take all the luck I can get!

 

[refect]

I think you should be fine as long as you weren't drawing from it while it was partially frozen. Doing that may pull certain flavor compounds in the beer that didn't fully freeze yet and make it taste off, or at least it seems like that is what happened to me.

I had a keg form a nice big ice ball around the dip tube some how. I was getting really foamy pours so I went to check the o ring on my dip tube. When i pulled it up, I noticed it had some weight to it. I was confused so decided to open the keg up and saw the massive ice ball. The keg was about half full when it froze like that, and I pulled about 6 or so pints off of it while drinking it and trying to get it to stop foaming before i noticed the ice ball. I closed the keg up, purged it, and let it thaw. I put it back in to chill/fully carbonate again, but it never tasted the same after that. The beer was a watermelon jolly rancher wheat and it lost just about all of the jolly rancher flavor. It also developed this unpleasant bite. Almost like hop burn, but not.

On the other hand, I've had beer bottles freeze almost all the way some how in my fridge. I let them thaw and they tasted fine.