Frozen kegs resulted in syrup sweet beers

[jcoxen]

My Johnson controller died the death last week. I found out when I came home and tried to draw a beer and got nothing - no hiss, no foam - nothing. I popped the top on my kegerator and found 4 kegs of ice inside.

After some quick research on HBT to see what to do I unplugged the kegerator, propped open the lid and left everything to thaw out for a few days. Meanwhile I ordered myself an Inkbird to replace the dead Johnson controller.

After a few days wait the kegs were thawed and almost back up to room temp. The Inkbird came in and I set it up and plugged everything back in. I gave everything a couple of days to chill down again and drew a beer. Way too much foam - I hadn't vented excess CO2 yet - but the beer itself was sweet. Think the difference between a coke and coke syrup. It's been a few days now and things have not improved.

Does anyone have any idea what's happened and if I can fix it?

 

[BlackDogBrew]

I've had frozen kegs before. Let them thaw slowly and keep drawing off pressure until you get back to serving pressure. You've got a lot of foam because the pressure is still too high in the keg. Give the kegs a little mild shake every once in a while to get everything mixed properly again.

If you build a quick spunding valve, you can get your kegs back to proper pressure without having to keep drawing pressure off.

 

[jcoxen]

Cool. Thanks for the advice...and the link to building a spunding valve.

 

[day_trippr]

Seems likely the freeze stratified the beer. I bet the top of the kegs would taste watery.
I'd try inverting one of the affected kegs a few times to try to mix the contents and see what happens...

Cheers! (and good luck!)

 

[JDXX1971]

Soooo............ You basically jacked your beer in a keg. I was wondering if it was possible. Hmmm.....I am chalking this up to research. :rockin:

 

[gl_az]

Soooo............ You basically jacked your beer in a keg. I was wondering if it was possible. Hmmm.....I am chalking this up to research. :rockin:

I accidentally did this to a recent oatmeal stout. Was supposed to be a fairly low ABV beer. I was on my way out of town for a few days and set it up to carb while I was gone. I accidentally set my cooler down a little lower than normal. When I got home, I couldn't figure out why the first few pints tasted a little stronger than I expected, really good, just stronger. Ended up getting flat out hammered after just two or three...turns out it was about 60% frozen. Was pretty cool looking though, it froze from the outside of the keg inwards from top to bottom. Should a took some pics and posted.

Now I have yet another thing to experiment with

 

[JDXX1971]

I got a keg of Cyser that needs to go in the keezer pretty soon then. I have been thinking about this for a while now. Our keezer should (unfortunately) be vacant in few weeks for a short time too.

 

[TallDan]

Ya sure the kegs are fully thawed?

 

[jcoxen]

Ya sure the kegs are fully thawed?

Yep. I unplugged everything, propped the lid open and put a fan running to circulate room temp air into the bottom of the keezer. Then I left it that way for 3 days.

Bleeding the co2 off the kegs several times helped a lot. I'll try shaking them up a bit to make sure they're blended to see if that fixes the rest.

 

[BlackDogBrew]

Yep. I unplugged everything, propped the lid open and put a fan running to circulate room temp air into the bottom of the keezer. Then I left it that way for 3 days.

Bleeding the co2 off the kegs several times helped a lot. I'll try shaking them up a bit to make sure they're blended to see if that fixes the rest.

It will... It will be fine. Two weeks ago I left a keg outside for too many days. Froze solid. I'm drinking it now. It's not the first that has happened to me. As JDXX1971 noted above, I've always thought it would be fun to try to make an "ice" beer though. Find that perfect temp where it turns to slush and drink the beer, leaving the ice behind. Probably would be like the 1990's "ice" beers and be headache hell though.

 

[jcoxen]

Just a quick followup. I vented the kegs again this evening and shook them. That appears to have done the trick. Except for some sediment I stirred up they're back to normal.

Thank you everyone for the quick and helpful advice. As usual, the community here rocks. :rockin: