Cold crashing - froze it!

grrickar · Mar 4, 2015

So I recently purchased a used wine fridge to use as a fermentation chamber, and after plugging it in and verifying the cooling worked I put my 6 gallon better bottle in there, full of an IPA I wanted to cold crash. I checked on it after a day and the temp was down nicely. Then I got the flu...

Being in bed for a couple of days I didn't check it, but yesterday I discover the 'little fridge that could' froze it. Not solid, but a nice slushy consistency. I unplugged the fridge to start the thaw. The unfinished side of my basement is around 57.

I ordered an STC so this won't happen again, as I think the reason I got the fridge so cheap is that when they said it 'wasn't working', what they meant to say was it would freeze the contents. They admitted to replacing the thermostat, and I wonder if whoever wired it screwed up and hardwired it so the compressor runs all the time.

My question is, I intend to bottle this - are the yeast still going to be viable or will I need to repitch at bottling?

PoppinCaps · Mar 4, 2015

Better safe than sorry, I would add some fresh yeast at bottling.

philosofool · Mar 4, 2015

I recently did the exact same thing: using my new lagering fridge for the first time, I froze one of the beers in it...

Sadly, it developed a permanent haze that won't go away. I don't know what it is. One suspicion is dead yeast, which won't do the normal floculation thing and will consequently take a long, long time to settle out, if the will at all.

When I say my beer has a haze, I should say "It looks like a glass of mud." It is, without a doubt, the fugliest beer I have ever made of two hundred or more batches.

I wish I had fined the beer with gelatin before kegging. (Brewing in a bucket, it was hard to realize how bad the haze was...) I strongly recommend you do. Brulosopher did a gelatin fining experiment in which he describes a simple process for gelatin.

TungstenBeer · Mar 4, 2015

I know you probably don't want to do this, but it sounds your beer is in a perfect form for creating an eisbock. If you have the desire, skim out the ice particles and bottle the rest.

I secretly wish for that to happen to me by "accident" one of these days.

grrickar · Mar 11, 2015

I'll all set now, no more frozen beer - STC1000+ to the rescue.

JINKS · Mar 11, 2015

I accidentally froze a red ale for 20+ days . Not solid but everywhere the fermwrap didn't cover. Controlled by a stc1000+ but the chamber is up against the garage door and we had several sub zero days during the process.

My best beer to date. Still had enough yeast to carbonate and is crystal clear. Also able to get a full pour from the bottle as the yeast appears glued down and is a chore to rinse out.