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Brewmergency!


Beervis

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Hi all, looking for some help - my temp controller died the other day and had a brew on at the time, managed to keep it in the target temp range by turning the fridge on for a couple hours before bed then turning it off again - did this for a week.

Went away for 5 days over the last weekend and decided to cold crash - it's an old fridge and it completely froze the brew!  When I got back it was a giant beerberg.

I've defrosted it up to about 10 degrees now and looking to bottle over the next few days.  

I'm wondering if being frozen for a few days will have affected the yeast to the point where it won't be able to bottle carb?  I was planning on reusing the yeast with a classy pitch onto yeast cake for my next brew as well and wondering if the freezing will affect it's viability?  Should I disturb the sediment and give the whole thing a stir and leave it at 20 degrees for a couple days?

I was using reactivated Cooper's commercial yeast, first time it's been used.  

Thanks in advance.

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Should be fine mate.

The yeast would have gone dormant but should come back to life once at the right temp and some more fermentables are added.

I have never froze a brew but have talked to a few people that have and they never had any dramas.

Mitch.

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Thanks everyone.  Damn! I tried a really basic k+k to test the Coopers yeast, Real Ale + 1kg brewing sugar & 500gm LDM, it tasted very decent straight out of the fermenter.  Hope I haven't killed it.

EDIT - had a taste test.  Definitely not as good, tasted a bit washed out.  But still quite nice.  I'll bottle it and see how she goes.

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Hi all,

Still having problems with this brew, looking for some advice.  The freezing hasn't ruined the flavour and I've left it at about 18 degrees for another week or so due to being too busy to bottle it and not wanting to risk cold crashing it again (only just got a new temp controller).

I've gone to bottle it today and for all intents and purposes it's acting like it is already mildly carbonated.  It tastes ok and I don't believe it's infected, but I'm getting it gushing when I drop the carb drops in - not a lot, but a little.  It was behaving a bit similar to this after a week or so when it had finished carbonating, so I don't think it's a new issue.

It's the first time I've used recultured Cooper's yeast so I'm wondering if it's an overpitch, although I only used the yeast from 4 stubbies of session ale.

Decided to bottle it anyway in PETs to avoid bottle bombs but I got no idea what's going on here.

I used a can of real ale, 1kg brewing sugar and 500gms LDM brewed to 23 litres.

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Nothing left to do now but wait. I would of bottled the batch also, might as well hope for the best as the time and effort has already been put in.

Hope the brew tastes good, I expect it will be right, as per others experience.

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