Munich Helles Dead Guy Clone (Extract & AG- see note)

Brewed this little over a week ago, my SG was 1.074, overshot the SG a bit but thats ok. Took a gravity reading today and its at 1.021. Tasted too sweet for me. Attenuation is 70%. Took it out of the fermentation chamber and going to let it rest at room temp for another week. i hope i can get the terminal gravity down lower. 1.017 would make it 77% attenuation which is to top end of Pacman.

I've been able to get pacman well into the 80s. I like it for high gravity beers I want to finish dry.

Brewmex41 said:

I've been able to get pacman well into the 80s. I like it for high gravity beers I want to finish dry.

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Notice any off flavors from fermenting that hot?

Mines at low 70s right now since i took it out of the ferment chamber. Its gone down a couple gravity points in the last couple days.

j1n said:

Notice any off flavors from fermenting that hot?

Mines at low 70s right now since i took it out of the ferment chamber. Its gone down a couple gravity points in the last couple days.

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He's talking about attenuation percentage, not temperature. It's not a good yeast for high temperatures, but it's great at cool temperatures. My favorite fermentation temperatures for pacman is 60-62 degrees.

Yooper said:

He's talking about attenuation percentage, not temperature. It's not a good yeast for high temperatures, but it's great at cool temperatures. My favorite fermentation temperatures for pacman is 60-62 degrees.

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I had mine in my ferment chamber @ 60 for 10 days and it stopped at around 1.021-1.022. The hydro sample tasted way too sweet so i took it out and let it get to room temp. I also needed the fermentation chamber to finish my Saison that stalled at 1.035, so i threw it in there and set the temp to 90.

The dead guy clone went down to about 1.019 in the last couple days sitting at room temp. I'm trying to get it down to about 1.016 so its not so sweet. Do you think ill get any off flavors with warming it up. I was thinking id be ok since its at the tail end of fermentation.

j1n said:

I had mine in my ferment chamber @ 60 for 10 days and it stopped at around 1.021-1.022. The hydro sample tasted way too sweet so i took it out and let it get to room temp. I also needed the fermentation chamber to finish my Saison that stalled at 1.035, so i threw it in there and set the temp to 90.

The dead guy clone went down to about 1.019 in the last couple days sitting at room temp. I'm trying to get it down to about 1.016 so its not so sweet. Do you think ill get any off flavors with warming it up. I was thinking id be ok since its at the tail end of fermentation.

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No, I think that is fine.

Best with the recipe with 12 lbs of MO or 10?


Sent from the kingdom of beer.

Ya sorry I meant attenuation.

Well my FG got way too low. I my mash temps should have been higher, i think i mashed it at 153 or 152. It finished at 1.012. I tried the hydro sample before i kegged and it tasted kind of thin and dry. there was no sweetness at all now and it felt like it was missing something. even though it tasted too sweet at 1.022, it was better than at 1.012.

Have you calibrated your thermometer lately? I had a similar problem and it was just the thermometer.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

My brewhouse efficiency is currently around 70%. Should I up the Marris Otter to 12-14lbs, or stick with the recipe at 10lbs of Marris Otter?

Redcat said:

My brewhouse efficiency is currently around 70%. Should I up the Marris Otter to 12-14lbs, or stick with the recipe at 10lbs of Marris Otter?

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I was getting about 70% or so myself when I made this recipe- your OG should be right in the ballpark. If not, you can scale up but I think you should be fine.

Hi Yooper,

Thanks for the great recipe. Brewed this one a year ago and loved it. I have some wyeast 1335 slurry in the fridge from brewing your oatmeal stout (another amazing recipe!) I'm wondering how you think it would change the beer to ferment the dead guy on that yeast. The attenuation is similar, and it's easier on my wallet, so I think I'll give it a shot.

Sadly, I am drinking my last bottle of this one.
I don't think I've ever tried Dead Guy Ale, but I'm glad I brewed this one. It's delicious, definitely brewing this one again.
Thanks again Yooper!!

Ended up hitting 1.062 with the recipe as listed

GonZolaB said:

Sadly, I am drinking my last bottle of this one.
I don't think I've ever tried Dead Guy Ale, but I'm glad I brewed this one. It's delicious, definitely brewing this one again.
Thanks again Yooper!!

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Do yourself a favor, buy just 1 bomber. This is the ale that got me to start home brewing. Great stuff.

VegasBrew1 said:

Do yourself a favor, buy just 1 bomber. This is the ale that got me to start home brewing. Great stuff.

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Thanks VegasBrew1, will do

I brewed this recipe scaled down to a 1 gallon batch and so far it came out great. I have a SG or 1.064 and an FG of 1.014 and it sat there for a few days. I was not able to get the Pacman yeast so I just used a California Common dry yeast. The color is spot on and the aroma is excellent. I tasted a little when I bottled last night and it was pretty good (for having no carbonation). I have about 2 weeks to let them bottle condition and then it'll be time to compare to a couple of the real thing.

Thanks Yooper for the recipe.

Gonna be brewing this within the next couple of weeks and will be using the Pacman yeast that I harvested from three bottles as seen in the picture. I used three steps to get the quantity currently in the jar and will use this to make a starter just before brew day. Excited to see how this is gonna turn out since it's my first time harvesting yeast from commercial bottles.

Thinking about brewing this up as my wedding beer. May wedding, maibock.

I'm an unrepentant tinkerer, so I have the crazy idea to use 3.3lb of Maris Otter LME and 3.3lb of Briess' Rye LME (which is maybe 25% rye) and compensate with more 20L steeping grains to keep the color within spec.

Will this "Dead Rye" bill lead to happy ever after?

bradford0113 said:

Gonna be brewing this within the next couple of weeks and will be using the Pacman yeast that I harvested from three bottles as seen in the picture. I used three steps to get the quantity currently in the jar and will use this to make a starter just before brew day. Excited to see how this is gonna turn out since it's my first time harvesting yeast from commercial bottles.

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That's cool! Good luck with it!

I just got all my ingredients and will be brewing the original recipe this weekend using the Pacman yeast that I bottle harvested. I want to keep the fermentation temperature low as recommended throughout this thread.

I have a basement closet that has been maintaining an ambient temperature of about 55F and I am thinking about placing the fermentor in there. Does anyone know if the Pacman yeast will still do okay at that low of an ambient temp? Should I start it warmer to get the yeast going and then move it to the closet or just put it in there from the start?

Part of my problem is that I am brewing Sunday but will then be going out of town on Tuesday so I won't be able to monitor the fermentation. I would hate to come home Friday to find out that it never took off.

On the original post, Yoop suggests in the AG recipe to shoot for an IBU of 30-35. When I plug the extract version into beersmith, it gives me an IBU of 25. Should I adjust up the amount of hops a tad, or add one of the extracts late (20 min into the boil) to accomplish the higher IBU?

Gusmedic said:

On the original post, Yoop suggests in the AG recipe to shoot for an IBU of 30-35. When I plug the extract version into beersmith, it gives me an IBU of 25. Should I adjust up the amount of hops a tad, or add one of the extracts late (20 min into the boil) to accomplish the higher IBU?

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Yes, add the majority of the extract at flame out.

Gonna try this recipe out today and pick up some Vienna malt to do that Yellow Fizzie recipe of yours by mid week I'll have three of your recipes siting in buckets--Thanks Yoopr

I have everything to do this one as my second all grain, but I have to wait another week to get my first all grain out of my fermentation chiller (heater actually this time of year). Anxious to do this one though, so please post how it goes for you.

bradford0113 said:

I just got all my ingredients and will be brewing the original recipe this weekend using the Pacman yeast that I bottle harvested. I want to keep the fermentation temperature low as recommended throughout this thread.



I have a basement closet that has been maintaining an ambient temperature of about 55F and I am thinking about placing the fermentor in there. Does anyone know if the Pacman yeast will still do okay at that low of an ambient temp? Should I start it warmer to get the yeast going and then move it to the closet or just put it in there from the start?



Part of my problem is that I am brewing Sunday but will then be going out of town on Tuesday so I won't be able to monitor the fermentation. I would hate to come home Friday to find out that it never took off.

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I know it's late but my personal preference would be to start warmer and then move it to the closet to ensure that yeast takes off. Hope it went well for you.

Brewed this 10 days ago and got an OG of 1.060 which was a little low. Over the last three days the SG hasn't changed from 1.021 which is a little higher than I expected for this beer. I mashed at 158F (full volume BIAB) and used bottle harvested Pacman yeast. Should I just bottle this as-is or should I add some US-05 I have on hand to see if I can get the gravity to drop a little bit more?

If your harvested yeast wasn't super healthy for some reason (a real possibility with any harvested yeast) then it could have stopped short. Some us-05 could do the trick. I like the cask and barrel conditioning yeast though. It's intended to not add flavors from refermentation.

Brewed this recipe Monday afternoon another good recipe from the Yooper--can't wait to get it in a keg Thanks Yooper!

I've looked through the last 20 or so pages of this post. It looks like most people are using WLP001 (cal ale), or pacman, or I guess to generalize it more, Ale yeast. Has anyone used a lager yeast, since Maibocks are traditionally lagers?

The reason I ask is I currently have Yooper's O'fest in the fermenter (tastes great BTW!) with WLP820 O'fest yeast, ready to be transferred to the keg. I'm debating what to do with the yeast cake.

Haven't tried yet, but I am getting ready to brew this one with W-34/70. I don't think you can go wrong with this grain bill.

mrstevenund said:

I've looked through the last 20 or so pages of this post. It looks like most people are using WLP001 (cal ale), or pacman, or I guess to generalize it more, Ale yeast. Has anyone used a lager yeast, since Maibocks are traditionally lagers?

The reason I ask is I currently have Yooper's O'fest in the fermenter (tastes great BTW!) with WLP820 O'fest yeast, ready to be transferred to the keg. I'm debating what to do with the yeast cake.

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I'm sure it would be good with the 820. You would be missing the yeast character, but you are doing that if you don't use pacman anyway. I say go for it.

Brewed this a couple weeks ago. Got an SG of 1.063 and just checked the FG and it's 1.020. Mashed between 155-156. Probably try 154 next time. Also had to use Wyeast American Ale. The Pacman came later than I expected. I should be able to throw this in a keg soon.

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Sadly this kicked on me last night, it was my first shot at it and got rave reviews from friends and family. Definitely on the short list to do again. This was all grain version, and I used US-05 yeast, it was a very nice beer.

Looks nice!

Hello, really keen to do this one. Struggling with the estimated colour. Based on the grains available to me from the local HBS, using the recommended 80% MO, 8% caramunich I, 8% light munich and 4% crystal malts I'm only hitting an EBC of 21.6 ( 8.7 Degrees Lovibond). Well short of 16L.

Changing this bill to 80% MO, 8% caramunich III, 8% dark munich and 4% dark crystal malt gives me an EBC of 34. This seems to be closer to the 40 EBC required but a huge deviation on the recipe.

What am I doing wrong? Should I substitute with darker variants of munich/crystal malts or change the crystal ratio?

A similar recipe found below seems to be much more generous with the crystal @ 16%:https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/beer-recipe-of-the-week-rogue-dead-guy-ale-clone/

And so it begins.

Well, I did this great beer again, and at the same time I was making a bourbon barrel porter. So while I was brewing, and transferring the two beer, I inadvertently put two ounces of oak, and twelve ounces of bourbon on my dead guy ale. After five days, I pulled the oak out so I wouldn't over oak it.

Well, after four months of bulk aging, this beer is AMAZING! I call it Drunk Dead Guy, and has been a real hit around here over the holidays. This is definitely going to be a seasonal holiday ale around here for sure.

While I was in New Jersey, I grabbed a bomber of dead guy ale to compare to this recipie, and I almost poured it out, this is by FAR much, much better than the original! THANKS Yooper for a great recipie!!!

One thing I noticed, was the first ten to twelve pulls, it was very bourbon forward, but now the bourbon has faded and the oakeyness is coming to the forefront, still stellar but the bourbon has faded slightly. I was thinking if I do this again, that I would cut it back to eight or ten ounces of bourbon. Anyhow, just wanted to say thanks, and let everyone know how amazing what I believed to be a disaster has really become a great seasonal brew.

Cheers and beers!!
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I brewed this about a month ago and it's in the bottle for about 2 weeks now.
However now I have a problem I have over 400 bottles of beer and about 10 different beers. So I need to make a drinking schedule to make sure I drink the beers that start to go down hill earlier first.

How would this beer stand the test of time if stored around 55 in my basement?
Does it still taste good after 6 months?

Thanks!