Is there a guide to icing beer to increase ABV?

[adamjackson]

I've heard of a few commercial brewers doing this and know a guy once did a high ABV cider by icing it. Is there a guid here or one online that i can follow?

I'd like to try this once to see what the result is mostly just as a curiosity more than actually making the beer taste better which I doubt would be the case.

Icing...being the process of taking beer and freezing it and draining what's left over to increase ABV and you do it multiple times but, at home, what's the best process?

 

[billl]

The Northern Brewer/ brewtv network did a show on the technique. Haven't tried it myself, but it looked pretty cool.

http://www.brewingtv.com/episodes/

Page over to episode 60.

 

[joyceman]

The technical phrase is jacking. Ive read a number of things about jacking cider or wine, but not beer. FYI, be careful googleing 'jacking', expecially at work.

 

[user 108580]

Brewdog? Shoot the brewer an email, maybe he has some tips.

I've got two bottles of there stuff right now. The penguin is great! Waiting to try the bismarck

 

[adamjackson]

Brewdog? Shoot the brewer an email, maybe he has some tips.

I've got two bottles of there stuff right now. The penguin is great! Waiting to try the bismarck

It's shown here at 50 seconds in how they iced the beer. this is what got me interested in it but they're doing this on a large scale with a professional refrigeration unit

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/214

I've had both of Bismarck and Penguin. They're okay but it's mostly just interesting. I'm curious in seeing what a home brew could do .

 

[barrooze]

Read the recipe for Eisbock in Brewing Classic Styles. Also, try to listen to the episode of The Jamil Show on the style.

You shouldn't just ice any style of beer. Since a portion of the water is removed, the subsequent beer is sweeter than it would be normally. A good Eisbock recipe will take this into consideration. I've also heard that concentrating your alcohol in this manner can also put it out of legal homebrew realms, so don't go overboard and remove too much water!

 

[HopJuicer]

I haven't done this with beer but have done it with blackberry wine. I used the tap a draft 1.5 gallon jug in the freezer and after a few days the wine was a little more frozen than a slushy but solid enough that i could turn the jug upside down into a 1 gallon sun tea jug to catch the runnings. I had a small screen strainer to catch any ice. I want to try it with a brew as well. The process enhanced the flavors a lot, so beware what style you do this with. Good luck!

 

[theblaster]

Just remember, bad materials in, bad materials out. I made a horrible apple cider. So I decided to make apple jack out of it. Concentrated horrific flavor.

It was interesting to see how the process worked and I am glad the first time I did it I did it with ditch water cider.