Frozen Beer In Fermenter Whilst Lagering

[mahonya1]

Hi all,

I have just bottled my first lager, an Oktoberfest style. It's been lagering in a fridge for the past 4 weeks. I would have like to have lagered longer but have to go overseas and wanted to bottle before I do. Anyway, yesterday I came to bottling and noticed that a lot of the beer had frozen. I could bottle half of it no problem. Didn't have time to let it defrost, so for the frozen part, I poured hot water on the help defrost before bottling.

Will this cause any problems? Will the first half that I didn't need to defrost be OK?

Thanks.

 

[Hinji]

Hi Mahony,

No expert here but what you seem to have done is unintentionally created an Eis beer, an EisOktoberfest if you will. All that you have really done is increase the concentration of alcohol and flavour of your beer. This partial freezing of beer is a method used to create an Eisbock. Have a look here.
Wiki link

Alternatively do a search here and you will find a number of people that this has happened to.

Cheers

Johnny

 

[mahonya1]

Hi Mahony,

No expert here but what you seem to have done is unintentionally created an Eis beer, an EisOktoberfest if you will. All that you have really done is increase the concentration of alcohol and flavour of your beer. This partial freezing of beer is a method used to create an Eisbock. Have a look here.
Wiki link

Alternatively do a search here and you will find a number of people that this has happened to.

Cheers

Johnny

That's good to know. Will be interesting to sample the beer, could turn out to be a great beer!

 

[mwd]

The beer you defrosted and diluted with hot water may not be so good. Time will tell.

 

[loikar]

Hi all,

I have just bottled my first lager, an Oktoberfest style. It's been lagering in a fridge for the past 4 weeks. I would have like to have lagered longer but have to go overseas and wanted to bottle before I do. Anyway, yesterday I came to bottling and noticed that a lot of the beer had frozen. I could bottle half of it no problem. Didn't have time to let it defrost, so for the frozen part, I poured hot water on the help defrost before bottling.

Will this cause any problems? Will the first half that I didn't need to defrost be OK?

Thanks.

Your first half will be full of strong flavours and rip your tits off.
Your second half will be watery and dull.

 

[Goldenchild]

FML!!


I had plugged the freezer into the wall to lower it to lager temps in a hurry as i was about to fly interstate for 2 weeks and in the end forgot to plug it back into the temp control .
Just got in this morning and found the solid ice bricks sitting at a brisk -13.5deg.

Fermenter 1 Being a fully fermented and delicous 11% belgian dubble that was placed in there to cc at 10deg while i fermented
Fermenter 2 A bo-pils assuming is totally unfermented as it was only pitched the morning i left so doubt the yeast had a chance to take off.

I am thinking the belgo will be ok if i defrost and either add more yeast to bottle or just keg.

Will the pils be right to thaw and pitch more yeast?
I have only ever frozen starters without hops which taste ordinary anyway.
Has anyone else fermented frozen wort and had good results or should i cut my losses.

 

[MaltyHops]

The poor yeasties are cactus ... pitch new yeast in both cases.