Whoops, froze all of my kegs!

[whatsleftofyou]

I just had to share this...

So last night I went to pull a pint of the American Pale Ale I kegged last weekend, and only a trickle came out. At first I feared that there was a leak and that I had 5g of APA sitting in the bottom of my keezer. I opened it up to look quick and that wasn't the case. Checked my CO2 tank and it was still mostly full. It was then that I noticed the bit of ice on the inside of the keezer and realized what happened: The sensor on my Johnson controller had fallen out of my keezer, so it was running as a normal freezer and froze all of my kegs. Great.... I just unplugged the freezer and walked away last night, so the kegs would "thaw". I haven't gone back to assess the "damage" yet, but I'm sure that my carb levels are going to be off, at the least. Fortunately I didn't have anything super special on tap so I'm not overly heartbroken if the beers take a slight hit.

Lesson learned!

 

[IffyG]

Been there, done that. Let them thaw, give them a swirl to homogenize the mixture again and let it carb up. You don't have much of an impact on the beer (other than it will be crystal clear if it wasn't already).

 

[Houdini]

I accidentally froze a keg once, and it never recovered. Not only was it much lighter in color and watery tasting (even after mixing it up again) but I had a ton of little black specs floating around that would never go away.

I think part of the issue was that the water in the beer froze first so I ended up drinking a lot of the alcohol (was wondering why it suddenly tasted so strong ) and when it finally unfroze I ended up with very watered down beer. Still not sure what caused the black flakes though.

Best of luck to you!