Janet's Brownsicle

[Tiedye]

I need a little help determining what my options are for a brew-oops!

I've got a Janet's Brown in secondary in a corny keg. I put it on the back porch for a couple of days before I planned to moved it to the kegerator to carb. I was planning on dry hopping in the keg, but had not added the hops before I ran into problems.

Jump ahead a few days with temps in the 20s and this thing is frozen SOLID!

I'm really not sure what to do here. I've just started to hit my stride with brewing and my last few batches have been nice. I was really looking forward to this brew.

* Can I just thaw it and proceed as usual? Dry hop then into the kegerator? Will the fact this froze then thawed ruin it?
* EIS might be nice? Does the fact that this wasn't dry hopped make it a better candidate for freeze concentration?

I'm open to anything to salvage the work. Make good beer, do some experimenting, whatever.

Side question: Do I need to do any maintenance on the keg? I just replaced the o-rings. Will the cold cause those to dry, crack, die?

Thanks everyone for opinions and advice - happy holidays!!!!
Tiedye

 

[Setesh]

As far as the keg goes, expansion of the metal would be the thing to worry about. The o-rings will return to normal after they warm up, no worries there. Ice could have easily expanded the keg, that would be my largest worry. As long as it didn't expand enough to fail I don't see it being anything other than a cosmetic problem though. I would give that keg a full inspection and then test it to see if it holds pressure. If it does I would consider it a good keg and move on.

As for the beer I have never been in this territory before. My assumption would be that once the beer thaws you will be able to carbonate it again (freezing would have forced out the carbonation) and it would be fine. But that is just an assumption. I would at least start with that. Let it warm back up in the kegerator and give it a try. Let us know how it tastes at that point. If it is good then proceed with dry hopping. I'm sure freezing will have some impact on flavor, but I doubt it will be a fatal one.

 

[cossacks19]

Like setesh said the worry would be the keg. I have accidentally froze a beer while I was trying to cold crash it. It was in a glass fermentor, but I simply and slowly let it thaw and racked to a keg. The beer was fine, I'm sure there was a small effect on it but they were not noticeable to me.