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Last night I bottled an extract kit with a friend, divided bottles, drove home, and left them in the car overnight 6pm to 6am. It got down to 5 degrees F, but the beer did not get cold enough to freeze.

So, is there anything I can do? I unpacked them somewhere warm and swirled them around a bit, but I'm guessing that even in a refrigerator that long the yeast would go dormant. I know that it's possible to open it back up and repitch the yeast, and I've heard of people measuring out amounts for each bottle, or dumping it back into the carboy and restarting the beer. It was a fairly big beer (1.070) with US-05.

Which way is the best? Starter needed? Or is it resilient enough to carbonate despite being that cold overnight?

bingbong
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2 Answers2

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The yeast is dormant, not likely dead. Leave them in a warm place for a couple weeks or so and they should be fine.

Denny Conn
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Many moons ago, I did a test on freezing yeast (the dregs from various Trappist types).

After a few weeks in the freezer I thawed them gently and made a little starter culture of each one; they were slow taking off, but certainly some of the yeast had survived.

I think you should be fine.

BlokeDownThePub
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