Helles/Doppelbock

I am preparing to brew one for a friend's birthday and have come across 2 clone recipes with lager yeast and one with a trappist ale yeast. Can I use the ale yeast and not lager and still come out with a true helles/doppelbock?

Also, to I have to peform decoction (one recipe calls for a single decoction, the others simply do not mention)

boomtown25 said:

I am preparing to brew one for a friend's birthday and have come across 2 clone recipes with lager yeast and one with a trappist ale yeast. Can I use the ale yeast and not lager and still come out with a true helles/doppelbock?

Click to expand...

Short answer is no. To make a real lager you have to use lager yeast. You can, however, make a good beer using an ale yeast although the trappist ale yeast would be a poor choice IMO.

boomtown25 said:

Also, to I have to peform decoction (one recipe calls for a single decoction, the others simply do not mention)

Click to expand...

I'm a fan of decoction mashing but it is not a requirement.

How much time do you have? Bottling or kegging? If you have a month + time to carb you could still do it as a lager.

If you are using fully modified grains, there's really no need to do anything other than a simple infusion.

wailingguitar said:

How much time do you have? Bottling or kegging? If you have a month + time to carb you could still do it as a lager.

If you are using fully modified grains, there's really no need to do anything other than a simple infusion.

Click to expand...

+1 although Decoction is more about Malliard reactions in the cooker for color/ flavor than about protien rests IMO... Very similar notes can be obtained from specialty malt in the GB. If your working from a recipe, up the crystal or darker malt by a smidge if it says to decoct and you infuse instead.

Any suggestions on a strain of ale yeast? I'm trying to hit higher OG for higher alcohol (8-10%). I would lager, but I do not have a vessel to ferment cold and I live in Biloxi, MS so our February is 70 degrees.

FYI, here is my planned recipe so far. Feel free to add your 2 cents:

10# Blegian Pils
3# Briess Pilsen Light DME
1# Munich Malt
0.8# Carapils/Dextrine
0.8# Briess Caramel 80L

1oz Perle at 60 min.
1oz Perle at 40 min.
1oz Perle at 20 min.
1oz Perle at 10 min.

This recipe has the yeast listed as Wyeast 3787

If you want to do it as a single infusion, make sure that Pils malt is fully modified, otherwise use a domestic 2 row. It will still be a great beer.

Any clean fermenting ale yeast will be fine.. 1056 is work horse, or the dry version by fermentis S05

As to lagering, a swamp cooler would be your friend. Place the ferm in a small tub of water. Saflager S23 does a good job at about 60F, even on the Gulf Coast you could easily maintain a 55-60F water temp by swapping out freezer packs a couple times a day.

Swamp cooler... And Cover with towel to wick water from the tub and a cheap fan blowing on it will knock another few degrees off.
The keys to a crisp ferment will be to pitch a LOT of yeast and to keep it on the low end of the the temperature range for what ever yeast you use. Remember also that the temp is most difficult to maintain in the first few days while the yeast is raging. This time is also the most critical to fend off ester production.
If you dont do starters, stick with the dry Yeast, and pitch at least 2 packs.

Are you making a Helles or a Dopplebock? Big difference as one is a lighter, easy drinking beer and the other is darker and packs more of a punch!

I'd go s05 if you don't want to lager it. It's cheap and about as neutral as you can get.

I typically get my lager yeast and make a 5 gallon batch of Helles. Then I pitch that slurry into my 10 gallon Dopplebock. The beers are completely different.

integrator said:

Are you making a Helles or a Dopplebock? Big difference as one is a lighter, easy drinking beer and the other is darker and packs more of a punch!

Click to expand...

Helles Doppelbock is a lighter colored doppelbock, like a strong maibock/hellesbock

You can use melanoidin malt in lieu of doing a decoction. For yeast, it depends on how low you can maintain your ferment temps. If you can get to 58-60, I would go with WLP810, San Fran yeast. If you can only get to mid 60s or so, maybe WLP001 - but in either case, make a beast starter and overpitch. Get those sugars eaten quickly and at low temperature to minimize yeast flavors.