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OOPPPSS!!!! Frozen beer


brettm14

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Hi All,Cold crashing a brew at 2c which has been good all summer.

Just went to bottle a brew and it is half frozen[crying] .

Should I just leave it at room temp until defrosted and bottle or will being frozen damage it??????????.

Cheers

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When you say half frozen, do you mean like a slushie?

 

I froze my beer once whilst cold crashing; not completely frozen but a bit like a slushie. I warmed it up before bottling and it was fine. Don't know if I was just lucky or if it is usually ok to do it.

 

I would just do what you said; leave it at room temp to warm up and then bottle.

 

Good luck with it!

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This happened to me once. Reasonable sized iceberg. Thawed and bottled. Under-carbed but still good. Depending on the style you may want at add a little yeast. Ales don't need tonnes of bubbles, but a flat lager is yuck.

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I have read that freezing dry yeast will rupture the cell membranes. But I have also recently read of people storing their dry yeast in the freezer with no problems.

 

If you intend storing dry in a freezer then they must be vacuum sealed. Oxygen is detrimental to the health of stored yeast. It is said that vac sealed dry yeast keeps longer in a the freezer than at room temperature. Personally I would stick to the fridge.

Storing liquid yeast in a freezer in a glycerine solution is a little trickier but if done correctly provides a means of long term storage. If you get that ratio of glycerin incorrect or freeze and thaw to often then they will cash in their chips.

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Yep, as per John's comment - dry yeast survives best when stored in an oxygen depleted environment and at cool temps. Recently, a commercial yeast supplier suggested storing dry yeast in the freezer will not be detrimental[biggrin]

 

John, what has happened to the little devil in your signature block??

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Thanks for the feedback .

Yep a bit more than a slushie a Reasonable sized iceberg.

It has defrosted so I will just bottle it and post the results in a few weeks.

It may be good or bad but I will have learnt something & if I post the results it may help others in the future.

On the Bright side the other 69L I am about to bottle is great.

Wish me luck that is a shit load of bottling[biggrin]

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I have read that freezing dry yeast will rupture the cell membranes. But I have also recently read of people storing their dry yeast in the freezer with no problems.

A lot of people freeze dry yeast with no problems whatsoever. I have always stored mine in the fridge as I believe this a better method. The rupturing of cell membranes mostly refers to liquid yeasts, yeast slurrys and live yeast cultures. If you want to freeze these then you need to do this with glycerin as a cryoprotectant which prevent ice crystals forming on the cells thus ripping the yeast cells to pieces. I have successfully frozen yeast slurry at a 25-30:70 ratio quite a few times now.

 

People need to realise that freezing yeast at home is completely different than freezing yeast in a Brewery's Lab. Therefore, the ratio of Glycerin is very different to achieve the same outcome. Give or take a few degrees, IIRC Lab freezers operate at around -80C and your home freezer cycles at around -18C. NOt only this but also the effect of a self defrosting freezer is different yet again.

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