AG56 - Freeze Concentrated Eisbock

[strange-steve]

Well two weeks into primary fermentation and this is now down to 1.028, hopefully that'll drop a bit further of the next couple of weeks before lagering begins. It tastes really rich and malty and surprisingly smooth already, but there is a little more ester flavours than I expected being fermented at 10° but I'm hoping that'll diminish during the lagering.

 

[strange-steve]

It's 4 weeks now since pitching the yeast and fermentation seems to have stopped at 1.022 giving an ABV of 9.2%. The estery flavour that was there a couple of weeks back seems to have mellowed out leaving nice toasty, toffee malt flavours.

I've now set the fridge to 0° to lager for 4 weeks before freeze concentrating.

 

[strange-steve]

Well after 2 weeks lagering at 0° and a further 2 weeks at -3°, today is freeze concentration day. I've just racked to secondary and it's now in the fridge set to -15° and I'll be checking it every half hour until it starts to freeze. There's currently 18L and I'll scoop out ice crystals with a sieve until there is about 14.5L left, which will theoretically increase the alcohol content from 9.2% to 11%, and concentrate all the flavours.

This is the before shot, I'll add the after later...

 

[strange-steve]

Well this is proving to take much longer than expected, Hofstadter's law is definitely in effect here. It turns out my old fridge is barely up to the job. Last night after about 10 hours it had only dropped to -4.5° with no sign of ice. So I left it overnight and this morning it was still at -4.5°, but I had some blue picnic freezer block things which I put around the FV to remove some airspace from the fridge and eventually it dropped to -7.5° and began to freeze, slowly. So far I've removed about 2L of ice, so about half way . Next brew is gonna be something simple :?

 

[strange-steve]

Ok so I'm finally finished the concentrating, 2 days after starting! Although it took a while for the temperature to drop, once it did it was pretty straightforward.

This is some of the ice I removed. As you can see from the colour it obviously isn't pure water, but it does taste very watery so there isn't too much beery goodness being removed.

Here's a side by side of the before (left) and after (right) where you can see a slight darkening of the colour. The SG has also increased from 1.022 to 1.026.

It has definitely made a big difference to the flavour, it's incredibly rich, sweet and malty with a thick syrupy mouthfeel. Another few weeks lagering then I'll get it bottled.

 

[strange-steve]

I bottled this last night 12 weeks after brewing, and it looked lovely and clear as you'd expect from 8 weeks at 0°. I added a pack of Crossmyloof pale ale yeast along with the priming solution because I don't think there was enough yeast left in it for carbonation. I'll give it a few weeks to carb then stash them in the attic over winter to condition.

 

[strange-steve]

Okay 7 months after brewday I thought I'd add an update to this.
I'm very happy with the result, although I've still not tasted a commercial version for comparison. Bold, rich flavours without being overly sweet. This'll make a nice fireside beer come winter.
Also it got me a gold medal in this year's Irish NHC competition which was a nice surprise

 

[IainM]

Okay 7 months after brewday I thought I'd add an update to this.
I'm very happy with the result, although I've still not tasted a commercial version for comparison. Bold, rich flavours without being overly sweet. This'll make a nice fireside beer come winter.
Also it got me a gold medal in this year's Irish NHC competition which was a nice surprise

Looks amazing. Congratulations.

 

[Clint]

Inspiring stuff! Well deserved too...

 

[Leon103]

Congratulations

 

[GerritT]

Okay 7 months after brewday I thought I'd add an update to this.
I'm very happy with the result, although I've still not tasted a commercial version for comparison. Bold, rich flavours without being overly sweet. This'll make a nice fireside beer come winter.
Also it got me a gold medal in this year's Irish NHC competition which was a nice surprise

Looking good, congratulations! And thank you for the reporting!

 

[Ajhutch]

Congrats on the gold medal, and it looks a great beer. Will be interesting to know what level of feedback you get on a pretty rare style. I was quite underwhelmed with the feedback on a German wheat beer when I entered a competition last year, one judge said it was too sweet and one said it was too dry!