Frozen Beer

[melinda]

G'day men,
Being a fool that I am, I accidently plugged the freezer straight back into the socket without putting it through the fridge-mate first. So now I have 4 frozen kegs. Can I defrost this beer and drink it?
Thanks
Cadbury

 

[unrealeous]

Hell yeah.

 

[melinda]

They are the words I was hoping to hear.
Thanks

 

[tallie]

Eisbier!

Hope you didn't damage your kegs - might want to check the seals etc next time you clean them.

Cheers,
tallie

 

[argon]

One of my best beers ever was going down the Eisbeer route... did a Baltic Porter... froze the secondary and racked off the ice into keg... aged it nicely... big flavours came out and increased the ABV. Sent my second last tallie to Manticle for the Xmas in July lotto... got another one fermenting at the moment.

Freezing and racking can really improve your beer by intensifying the flavours... if you have a style in one of the frozen kegs that might work, give it a go.

 

[JestersDarts]

One of my best beers ever was going down the Eisbeer route... did a Baltic Porter... froze the secondary and racked off the ice into keg... aged it nicely... big flavours came out and increased the ABV. Sent my second last tallie to Manticle for the Xmas in July lotto... got another one fermenting at the moment.

Freezing and racking can really improve your beer by intensifying the flavours... if you have a style in one of the frozen kegs that might work, give it a go.

Sounds like something to try!
Will only the water component freeze?
Or are you taking away other components from the beer?

 

[zebba]

You get a mix that freezes - mostly water, but some sugar, alcohol, etc, will get caught up in there. There are various techniques to maximise alcohol yeald, but you don't have to follow them to get excellent results.

I did it to an english-ish pale and the results are IMO outstanding. I just racked into a cube, chucked it in the freezer, then a couple of days later drained off what wasn't frozen and bottled it. The bitterness, body and colour were both concentrated, and the alcohol... well, it went from a 7% beer to you have 1 and feel like you've had 6. Definitely a sipper, the body and depth of flavour make it more like a very strong barleywine or even a fortified wine (port, sherry). Can't taste the alcohol though as the increased body and bitterness balance it all out.

even warmbeer, a man who loves to bag out every single beer I do says it was good and compared it to the brewdog/mikeller devine rebel - high praise, IMO.

But err... I may not have actually done this... isn't it illegal? h34r:

You won't get a headbanger session drink from this though. Mine is definitely more comparable to a strong barleywine than a quaffer.

 

[argon]

Sounds like something to try!
Will only the water component freeze?
Or are you taking away other components from the beer?

When I did it, I lowered the secondary down to around -10C in the fermenting fridge/freezer. Ice crystals formed on the walls of the fermenter and the surface, forming a high concentrate beer in the centre. It was still slushy, not solid. I was able to still rack to the keg via the tap. Have a look here

The method really concentrates the flavours and upping the alcohol content. Beware though that if you have any off flavours in the beer they will come through too. Obviously also youll lose a fair bit of volume by removing the water too.

Worth a shot IMHO especially with big malty beers that you can age for a bit

 

[zebba]

I was able to still rack to the keg via the tap.

The only issue i had wa i had to keep pouring boiling water over the tap to unfreeze the contents!

 

[argon]

The only issue i had wa i had to keep pouring boiling water over the tap to unfreeze the contents!

from memory i think i let it raise a touch at racking... just by pulling out of the freezer. flow was pretty slow and a little bit of ice made it's way into the keg. I never calculated the strength other than guesstimating the volume of water lost. But i reckon i went from 6% to 9.5%.. couldn't tell though

 

[raven19]

But err... I may not have actually done this... isn't it illegal? h34r:

Not in Oz afaik, in the USA it is illegal though, as its classed as distilling or similar.