Should I finish my Lager with an Ale yeast?

So, I decided to make a big lager and I think I over shot my mark... I started with a 5 gal batch with an OG of 1.106 (I was thinking Imperial stout w/ lager yeast)

I pitched a massive yeast starter decanted down to a 1/4 gallon of yeast slurry (WYeast 2206). No problems with starting fermentation or controlling the temperature. Racked it to the secondary this week and I've got a SG of 1.042 about 8.7 ABV... So now the beer is lagering and I think that this is a bit too sweet to be my final SG.

I was thinking about pulling the beer out and pitching a champagne yeast to finish off the sugar. The other option I'm considering is to age it on oak to bring in some acid to counter act the huge sweetness.

Thoughts?

Rob

I'm not an expert, but I would imagine that if you used an ale yeast and raised your temps, the lager yeast would produce some off flavours. If I were you, I would add a hybrid ale yeast that ferments at low temps, if anything at all.

You're only at ~60% apparent attenuation (if my math is right), so you might just pitch some re-hydrated dry lager yeast. Saflager 34/70 is pretty hardy, though I've never pushed it as high gravity as your beer. I use S-23 for big Baltic Porters and get good results and good attenuation. It's not as clean as the 34/70 but it works well in a big, roasty beer. I haven't used S-189 myself, but it supposedly has a high alcohol tolerance.

Wyeast's "Hella Bock" seasonal is still available, I think, and that's a lager yeast with a pretty impressive alcohol tolerance. That might be an option, too.

Try to get a hold of Charlie p's cry havoc yeast ( I think that's what its called) it ferments at both ale and lagers temps and is real clean

basically a hybrid that ferments at low temps with high attenuation...seems like you have some options.

Why not just pull it and do a 3-4 day d-rest at 60 degrees. That should be enough to make the yeast active and pull your FG down. Just a thought.

shadows69 said:

Why not just pull it and do a 3-4 day d-rest at 60 degrees. That should be enough to make the yeast active and pull your FG down. Just a thought.

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I already did a d-rest and moved to secondary...probably shouldn't have moved it off the yeast cake

yes, i missed the part of you moving it off the yeast cake. I would think you should be able to do another d-rest to activate what yeast is still in there to bring the fg down. I'm not 100 percent sure on that though, i don't see that it would hurt anything.

Red Star Premier Cuvée -18% tolerance will ferment down @ 45 degrees... should avoid the potential off flavors from bring the temp up too high, claims to be a "clean and neutral" fermentor. Probably won't alter the good yeast flavors already produce by my lager yeast.

Has anyone ever finished a beer with a wine yeast? I am beginning to think that this might be the best way to get the sugar down with out adding new flavors to the beer.

why did you rack off the yeast cake? Lager is bottom fermenting.

Delaney said:

why did you rack off the yeast cake? Lager is bottom fermenting.

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yeah, it had been in the Primary two and half weeks, I had pulled it out of my freezer-fermenter box as the krausen started to fall for a d-rest and a couple days later I moved it into the secondary and took a gravity reading in the process.

I know I might have been able to save some heartache if I had taken a gravity reading prior to moving it to the secondary. I just hate cracking open a carboy and sanitizing everything to take a sample.

But I think that it really probably wouldn't have changed that much since the gravity had already dropped from 1106 to 1042 (about 8.7% ABV) and the yeast has a tolerance of 9%. It was probably too big of a beer to do as a lager, since I'm finding that most lager yeast strains only have about 9% tolerance. I was hoping for 10-11% ABV and a FG of 1025ish

Couldn't you do a late addition of sterilized water to lower your ABV? This would lower your FG and allow yeast to attack more of those sugars, but you wouldnt hit 10-11 percent.