One keg and one 1/2 full carboy (glass) of german pils lagering in the fermentation freezer. Controller set to 33*…however, left the probe outside the freezer, so the compressor was continually on trying to lower the outside temperature and it likely reached subarctic temperatures inside.
Beer was frozen solid for 24+ hours. Let it thaw over the last 2 days. Going to lager again starting tonight.
Have heard some stories where it actually made the beer better. Hoping that this is the case with mine and I didn’t have some weird autolysis thing happen…because I’ve been really frigging excited for this German pils.
Dammit. I guess I’m lucky there was enough headspace in the carboy that it didn’t crack it.
Too much eis for an eisbock! Have to skim it right when the crystals start forming. Though we did just brew 14 gallons of doppelbock. I think we may fill two kegs, and this may be happening with the remainder of that one. You have to do it in a bucket right so its skimmable?
I’ve frozen cider solid before. Intentionally. Really, it was on purpose… Once it starts to thaw, you can turn the carboy over (carefully, it’s not meant to hold weight this way!) and the concentrated alcohol and remaining sugars will drain out leaving ice crystals behind.
Ah I see, didn’t think of doing it that way. I guess my worry would be oxidation in doing it that way as opposed to a bucket where you can just remove the hunk/hunks of ice with a sanitized spoon or something…May need to start a thread on the best eising methods for eisbeverages in prep for our eisbock
Good point - I didn’t think about oxidation. It was more of an “oh cr@p” moment when it happened. I suppose you could invert it over a CO2-purged bucket, but what a PITA!
