My beer froze solid...ruined?

[Hwk-I-St8]

The inkbird controlling my fermentation chamber (chest freezer) apparently malfunctioned. I went to keg my beer and it was a solid block of ice. The inkbird was still saying it was 67 degrees.

I unplugged the freezer, left the door open and I'm thawing it out, but will it adversely affect the beer (california common)?

 

[Hopalong]

WOW!!! It's a good thing the fermenter didn't break. I wouldn't worry, slushing up beer is a process used when beer is gooped up. It only went a little farther this time. The caveat: maybe the temperature dropped quickly and there's still glucose in the mixture. Check the gravity before kegging it. Hopefully, primary fermentation ended before the yeast dropped out. If all is good, rack the beer off sediment and carb with CO2. The beer should be pretty clear, but, it may lose some flavor because the good parts in the beer drop out when the goop drops out.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

This has happened to me, and mine was fine. In fact, it was one of my best beers (a chocolate maple porter).

The difference is that mine happened while I was cold-crashing, and I knew fermentation was finished. I primed and bottled it, and the carbonation was fine; having said that, I did add a bit of yeast when priming.

In the worst case scenario, I'd say that you might have to add some yeast - but other than that I believe you will be fine - there's only one way to find out!

 

[NGD]

This has happened to me, and mine was fine. In fact, it was one of my best beers (a chocolate maple porter).

The difference is that mine happened while I was cold-crashing, and I knew fermentation was finished. I primed and bottled it, and the carbonation was fine; having said that, I did add a bit of yeast when priming.

In the worst case scenario, I'd say that you might have to add some yeast - but other than that I believe you will be fine - there's only one way to find out!

Been curious about something like this happening. Did you add a fresh pitch of bottling yeast after priming or was there still enough viable yeast after the thaw?

 

[IslandLizard]

If the beer was done fermenting, just defrost, make sure the trub has settled out, then keg away. It should be just fine.

Or harvest the concentrated beer while defrosting for something more potent and unique. An California Ice-Common.

Enough of the yeast may still be viable, in case you want to harvest it. Make a starter or do a test fermentation to prove it's fine.

Better check that Inkbird, probe, etc.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

@NGD - I did add a small amount of yeast. This was a 1-gallon batch, and I may have added half of a "small" package of generic brewing yeast to prime - I don't know how much that was in terms of grams, but here's a photo, to give an idea:

I suspect that even that wasn't necessary, but it didn't hurt. The beer carbonated just fine, and tasted great.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I have an tilt hydrometer. I saw the temps dropping on the graph, but I thought it was just the battery going on the tilt. I was within a couple points of expected FG when the temp started to drop, but I'll keg it, leave it at room temp for a week with a spunding valve and see what happens. I'll also get a gravity reading and taste it as well.

This is going to cut down on lagering time before I have to bottle for a competition. The schedule is gonna be tight...

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Let us know how it goes - I'm guessing you will be just fine.

 

[BrewMan13]

It will be ok. I've had this happen before in the fridge that used to serve as my "kegerator" (now it's my hop fridge/lagering chamber, and has since had an inkbird hooked up to avoid this). I think I liked the beer more after it thawed; I want to say the head seemed creamier with finer bubbles, but I could have been imagining things or remembering wrong. Regardless, you should be fine.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Well, here's an update...just to show how absolutely stupid I am. I unplugged the freezer from the inkbird and left it for a few days to thaw. I go down to check on it last night and the freezer is on and the beer is still a single solid chunk. I had unplugged the heat belt, not the freezer.

I pulled it out of the freezer and put the heat belt back on. Unfortunately, this was a beer for two competitions, but I'm not very confident at this point. All I can do is wait and see what happens.

The good news is that if it's crap, I can brew my next batch that much sooner.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Honestly, having been through it, I am pretty confident that it will be good, and could be one of your best.

Just imagine placing in the competition - you'd have a hell of a story to tell about it.