Damn Dopplebock

2 weeks ago I brewed a dopplebock with a 1.085 starting gravity and pitched a 1 gallon starter of wyeast 2206 at 60 degrees. I then immediately put the carboy into my chest freezer which was set at 48. The lager fermented at 50 for 6 days until I took a gravity reading and saw it was down to 1.035. I proceeded to raise the temp to 65 to finish up fermentation and d-rest. It has been at 65 for 5 days now and I took a gravity reading and it appears the beer is at 1.030 with no signs of fermentation.

I've never been one have a stalled ferment and i havnt had these issues with lagers in the past. I am thinking about putting it back into the freezer and setting it at 48-50 again to see if the yeast wants some colder temps again?

I don't think putting it back in the cold would induce additional fermentation. If it appears to have stopped at 65 degrees, it shouldn't be more enthusiastic at 50.

Was this an all grain or extract brew? If the former, what was your mash schedule? If the latter, what brand of extract?

Rapid temperature swings can shock the yeast, so chilling it would likely just cause the little remaining yeasties to go dormant and drop out. I'm not a lager expert, but I'd leave it another day or two and re-check the gravity; it may just be moving really slowly at the moment.

NochEineMassBitte said:

I don't think putting it back in the cold would induce additional fermentation. If it appears to have stopped at 65 degrees, it shouldn't be more enthusiastic at 50.

Was this an all grain or extract brew? If the former, what was your mash schedule? If the latter, what brand of extract?

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It was all grain

10 pounds Munich 10
8 pounds pilsner
2 pounds caramunich IIi

Single infusion at 155

smagee said:

Rapid temperature swings can shock the yeast, so chilling it would likely just cause the little remaining yeasties to go dormant and drop out. I'm not a lager expert, but I'd leave it another day or two and re-check the gravity; it may just be moving really slowly at the moment.

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I planned on leaving it for a few days. I tasted it and its not overly sweet I just think 1.030 is a bit high.

The problem is that your starter was much too small. If you didn't use a stir plate, you pitched only about 1/3 of the necessary amount of yeast. If you did use a stir plate, you were still more than 30% short. This assumes you used an ultra fresh smack pack with 100% viability...the situation is worse if your smack pack was more than a few weeks old.

If you want it to attenuate more, its time to pitch an active starter of alcohol-tolerant yeast at high krausen. Its not going to improve much more on its own.

"Doppelbock"

It's done. Leave it alone; 1.030 is not that bad.

You probably felt good about a 1 gallon starter, but you underpitched.

Your mash temp was pretty high, which left your beer a bit less fermentable than it otherwise would have been.

You could alway pitch a neutral ale yeas to try and bring it down further. I have actuall done this with a dooplebock before. I stalled out at aorund .034 and pitched a pack of US-05 to bring it doen to .018.

BogusOwnz said:

It was all grain
10 pounds Munich 10
8 pounds pilsner
2 pounds caramunich IIi

Single infusion at 155

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2 pounds is a lot of Caramunich III.
If we assume it's similar to Crystal 60, then we can very roughly estimate 30 gravity points per pound per gallon, which would be an OG contribution of 0.012 from the Caramunich. I don't know what the fermentability of the sugars is, but let's just estimate that 50% of it is unfermentable. That two pounds would then be contributing 0.006 to your FG (may be higher or lower, I'm just ballparking).

The mash temperature of 155 is a bit on the high side, so combining that with the large amount of Caramunich, I don't think 1.030 is all that unreasonable an FG for a 1.085 beer.

The one gallon starter was 4 packs into about 4.5 liters which was done according to mr malty. So I guess a little over a gallon.

From what I read about dopplebocks close to 15% crystal malt is not to much.

I'm just going to leave it another couple days and start the lagering process that will go till February till the start of the lent. I'll just have to RDWHAHB. It could be I'm use to brewing beer under 1.045 that this big beer is freaking me out.

Sounds like underpitching is not the problem. It just finished a bit high. German breweries would probably have two temperature rests before 155. If you don't think it tastes too sweet, just keep going.

With 2lbs of crystal and 155mash you're pretty much done. You could try an active starter of something like wyeast 1056. With no crystal malt my bocks finishes at 1.018 at 154 mash.

Sounds like it is done. Wow thats allot of$$ in yeast are you going to wash it and do another batch?