Oops....I froze my kegs and there is a beer festival today!!!!

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BitterSweetBrews

Tim Trabold
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Today is the Midwest Homebrewers Invitational. I am bringing 5 gallons of Irish Red. But that's not the story.

Over the past few days I have been starting to modify my keezer to finally add faucet taps and replace the picnic taps I have been using for a couple years. I have been cutting wood to extend the sides up and fitting it to the top of the freezer. Once I have built and finished the extension I'll silicone it to the bottom part and re-attach the lid.

This morning at about 6:00 a.m. I woke early. Looking for something quiet to do while my wife was still sleeping I started putzing around the brewery. I decided to take some pictures of the keezer modifications to document it for a post or you tube. As I was taking the pictures I notice there was frost inside the keezer and that a couple pop bottles I had filled and force carbed were cloudy. I didn't think much about it until I went to take a picture of my keezer controller. It read 72 degrees. Huh?

At that point it hit me. The controller thermometer was not in the keezer.
The freezer was running as a freezer....Crap!! The cloudy bottle was frozen, as were three kegs and a couple six packs! On closer inspection I had one bursted bottle with beer snow and a couple leaking caps with snow.

I am supposed to take one of those kegs to the invitational in 6 hours!

So, what do I do? I thought......RDWHACoC (cup of coffee...it is 6:00 a.m.). Lets think about this.

It's almost Thanksgiving. With turkey thoughts in mind I remember, how do you thaw a frozen turkey in a hurry? You give it a bath. I took the keg and put it in the bath tub and filled it with warm water. I also put a frozen two liter bottle of water I use for my swamp cooler in the tub with it as a control reference.

The two liter bottle thawed in about an hour. Its been two hours and at last check, shaking the keg, it sounds and feels like its thawed out...whew!! I pulled it out of the tub and set it on the floor. I'll give it a few minutes to see if it cools down, indicating ice inside.

I don't think it will affect the beer, much. It is a sealed system and the keg was never opened. I think I will change the tub water to cold water and try to chill it down then force carb it a bit.

I am a little disappointed that with all the shaking and moving around it has probably lost any clarity gained from it lagering in the keezer for the last three weeks. Maybe it will settle over the next 3-4 hours.

I'll post later with results.
 
You are lucky you didn't blow up your kegs and co2 tank. I don't know man, they will probably be totally flat. Try to heat them in a bath of warm water and then use the rocking force carb method.
 
If the beer was frozen solid, the keg could be damaged. That would be my biggest concern. Keep it somewhere it could leak if the lid/posts are bent, like in the bathtub and make sure the tiptubes are intact by pouring the beer through a picnic tap.
 
At least you caught it early in the morning and had some time to try and fix the problem before needing to take your keg. Hopefully your keg is not damaged and your beer turns out fine.
 
It looks like it is going to turn out OK. My kegs all hold pressure and look good. I still have CO2.

I tapped the keg I need today from the liquid out and got a lot of pressure and all foam. I then tapped it from the gas in, got co2 and a little foam. Once I let the pressure off it tapped OK (it is a pin lock keg without a bleeder valve). The beer does seem a little flat. It is warm, so no ice. It tastes good and surprisingly is still pretty clear. I think I used a secondary fermenter and cold crashed before I kegged.

I could put it outside to cool, as it is 20 today, but I don't want to test fate. I have cleaned up the keezer, so I put it in there to chill for a while (The sensor is inside it). I have about 2 hours, so I put it on CO2 at about 25lbs to see if I can get a little carbonation back into it while it chills. I'll bleed it when I disconnect it later. We will be using jockey boxes at the festival so It doesn't need to be right at serving temp.
 
I did the same thing once the thermostat on my kegerator went bad. The beer was fine so was the keg
 
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