Well, I Froze My Primary...

[jkeysers]

I keep reading about it, but I have never actually done it. Apparently one of my brewing fridges has decided it wants to be a freezer now. I went out to the garage to check on my 2 fermenters. 1 fridge was sitting beautifully at -2o, but the other "fridge" was sitting at around -13o! Needless to say, I have myself a 25L ice cube.

OK, here is the story. I have 2 kegs at my place. I try to keep things going along at a one out, one in policy. I empty a keg, then I rack something that I have CCing straight into the empty and so on. That's what I try to do anyway, it never seems to work out. Anyway, a few of nights ago (about Tuesday), I realised both kegs were empty. Outside I had 2 beers in fermenters. 1 was a Lager which has been CCing for about 4 weeks. The other was another lager which had been sitting in the primary for about 4 weeks @ 9o or so. I have been a bit slack brewing lately, so I thought I would go turn on the 2nd fridge, crash chill it for 3 or 4 days and then just keg both at the same time and be done with it. I know a true lager is sposed to CC for a few weeks at least, but with the Mrs due to give birth any day, I thought I would cut a corner and just get both kegs down.

Anyway, I went out there today to find one fermenter, the one still "fermenting", frozen solid. I've gathered from on here that a frozen wort often comes out fine, but I just wanted to ask what you guys think I should do. I've also read that when a fermenter gets frozen, it can seperate the water from the beer and give an uneven taste. I figured that becasue I would be racking into a keg, that would stir it up enough to prevent that, but I don't know.

Should I;
Be lazy. Let the thing melt for 2 or 3 days then keg?
Do it proper. Let the thing melt for 2 or 3 days then rack to secondary?

If I rack to the secondary, do I need to add a fraction more yeast to clean things up? Or will enough have survived to finish it off?

 

[capretta]

i accidently froze a bock i had in secondary and i just reset the fridge so it slowly defrosted and the brew was tasty as! maybe you should do the same then check fg make sure fermentations finished and then keg cause im pretty sure that any yeast in there have gone dormant!
the only reason i would rack to secondary was if you thought a diacetyl rest was neccesary..

 

[Franko]

It should be ok mate,
just let it defrost and keg it - I did the same thing last week to 2 batches of APA they turned out ok

Franko

 

[jkeysers]

I was thinking I would just keg it. As I said, i've been lazy lately. If people tell me it'll significantly improve with a stint in the secondary, then i'll do it, but otherwise, meh.

I just kegged and carbed the other one, shes hoppy but good.

 

[jkeysers]

Anyone have any idea how long it'll take to completely defrost? It looks like it's gonna be about 18-20 degrees here in Melbourne for the next couple of days.

 

[razz]

If you leave it on the floor it will take about 2 days, longer in the fridge. I froze some cornies and they took about the same time to defrost outside the fridge.

 

[jkeysers]

It's still in the fridge, but the fridge door is wide open. Hopefully it's done by tomorrow arvo. I guess it'll all come down to whether i'm feeling lazy or not tomorrow afternoon.
Lazy=keg
Not lazy=secondary

The keg is clean and ready to go, the secondary is not.

 

[Enerjex]

if you could work out what went wrong with the fridge causing it to operate as a freezer it could save you some money on electricity because the compressor wouldnt need to be on so much! if you use some sort of fridgemate or electronic timer etc.