Lesson Learned

So I went to Milwaukee this weekend with my band to play a show. Before I left saturday morning, I noticed that my stand up freezer,which I keep my beer in, had climbed to 42 degrees F, I've been kepping it at 36 F. I turned the t-stat down just a tick and left. Came home last night, looked in the freezer and was shocked!!! The temp had dropped to 20 F. Every bottle had exploded and my glass carboy with lagering Oktoberfest brew had become 5 gallons of beer ice. This will be the first batch that I've lost. I will never again make an adjustment unless I will be home to monitor said adjustment.

allow the carboy to come back up to temp. The beer may not be lost. I have friend that had partially froze an IPA and it started bubbling again once it hit 47F. Patience my friend.

Sorry to hear about the bottles tho... RIP

It was in it's 4th week of lagering. I was going to keg it Wednesday or Thursday. I actually brought it inside to thaw, and I'm going to keg it anyway to see how it taste. It's the first brew I'm going to keg, so I figure I have nothing to lose experimenting with it now. It was pretty much frozen from top to bottom, so I'm sure all the yeastys are kaput. Since I'm kegging and carbonating with Co2 it might still be okay, right?

it should be fine man. no worries

Well I kegged it today, so I'll let you know how it turns out. Better yet, I could bring some to the next meeting and use everyone as guinea pigs for tasting it.

im game l