Disaster?

[MisterBurns]

So my first shot at Lagering has taken an unexpected turn - I turned the dial down on the fridge yesterday thinking to get it down to a reasonably low temperature however I came home this evening to find it down at -1.5 degrees and looks like it's partially frozen. Is it ruined??

[johnrm]

Bummer. What temp control have you?
Weigh up EUR15 for an STC1000 vs 5 hours brewing. Hmmmm...

It will not do the yeast any favours.
What stage of fermentation were you at?

[MisterBurns]

It was pretty much fully fermented just wanted to get try get the temp down for the final few days. Problem in no temp controller so just shoved the dial up to max thinking my cheap ass fridge would bottom out around the 3 degree point ..... fool

[Will_D]

Panic not, Probably will be OK

I have frozen a vial of slurry yeast (accidentally) and re-grew it successfully!

Just get it back to about 4 C or whatever, leave it. Are you doing a diacetyl rest?

If so you can expect to see some yeast activity (Ok, not a lot)

At least its a had a mega cold crash!!

Oh and buy a few STC-1000. If nowt else they make for nice mains powered thermometers! (Cheap)

[MisterBurns]

I let it ferment out then raised the temp for the diacetyl rest before dropping it again and then decided it could do with a further drop in temperature ......

[johnrm]

A fridge is a fridge.
Try and get your temps back to target.
There's a chance you might have something drinkable, maybe coors-like. Hmmmm...

[MisterBurns]

Lesson learnt, time to buy a STC and figure out how it works .......

[Dr Jacoby]

-1.5C is fine, especially if you're in a hurry. Your beer shouldn't freeze at this temp (the alcohol lowers the freezing temp). Even if the beer was partially frozen, that's not a major problem. All it means is that more stuff will drop out of solution in a shorter space of time. I'd only start to worry about this if it stayed at -1.5 or -2C for a long time, in which case you might drop too many proteins out of solution and be left with a very thin beer. However, if we're only talking about a few days you'll have no negative side effects. Just be glad your fridge will drop that low. I bought a chest freezer so that I could reach those temps easily!

[johnrm]

Is breathing back to normal now Misterburns?  ;-) STCs are a must.

[Garry]

I knew I'd read about this before. Looks like you're safe

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter10-6.html

[mr hoppy]

A few years ago I tried lagering a lager in a non temp regulated freezer ( I know).

I'd have gotten away with it as well if I'd been more attentive. It took awhile for it to get slushy and freeze. Which probably wouldn't realy have been a problem except I bottle conditioned it...

...with dead yeast.

In fact, I'm sure some folks on Jim's were saying that the lower you go the more effectively (and quickly) you lager, and that some slush isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm sure they were talking about temps like -1.

[johnrm]

If only you were Force carbing in a keg and beer-gunning it!
I do like my toys.

[Ciderhead]

Jesus he gets a beer gun last week and now he's Billy the Kid.
They do make you wonder what you did without them tho!

[MisterBurns]

Is breathing back to normal now Misterburns?  ;-) STCs are a must.

Just about John ...... I was dreading have to drink 23L of muck ......

[mr hoppy]

If only you were Force carbing in a keg and beer-gunning it!
I do like my toys.

I've been thinking about that recently. I could have frozen it solid then at it would have been ok.