steep Munich ??

Greetings all. I bought a recipe kit from my LHBS. It has 7.7 of LME and in the steeping bag is a pound of Wyermann light Munich. All the other kits I have purchased have grains like Crystal in the steeping bag. The instructions say to steep in 2-3 gallons of water(the same for the boil) for 15 minutes. Then proceed with the boil. I've done this with specialty grains and it turned well. From what I understand Munich is a base malt that needs to be mashed. Do you all think it is wise to do a mini mash with the pound of Munich, or just follow the instructions. Does it matter? Thanks for your help.

It ideally should be mashed, but in your recipe, you aren't depending on it for fermentables. You can just steep it, which is basically a lazy mash anyway.

If you steep Munich as opposed to mashing (i.e. if you pay no attention to the temperature) you may well extract little flavour and pretty much no sugar.
You may, however end up with unconverted starch in your wort, which would lead to a cloudy beer.

If your steeping water happens to be at the right temperature (63-73C roughly) you're effectively doing a mini-mash, and if you let it steep long enough you'll get full conversion and all will be good.

So in short, to use Munich properly you really ought pay attention to the time and temperature and make sure you're actually truly mashing and getting starch conversion.

Thanks for the info. Will one pound of mashed grain do much for th OG? Cheers.

it'll bring it up about 5 points. 2-3 gallons for 1lb of malt may be too thin to get full conversion though.

Like others have said, as long as you steep it around 150 degrees (technically between about 144 and 158 degrees), you *are* doing a mash, albeit a very short and dilute one, which means you won't fully convert the starches in the Munich malt. That's really not that big of a deal (technically, it might make your beer hazy and make it slightly more susceptible to infection if your sanitation isn't very good). If you want to boost your conversion efficiency, you would simply "steep" for longer, in less water, or add amylase enzyme powder, which you can buy from your local homebrew store.

I figured I'd mash it in a couple of quarts of water for 45-60, and then and that juice to the big boil. Thanks for the advice all.

dmbryan said:

Greetings all. I bought a recipe kit from my LHBS. It has 7.7 of LME and in the steeping bag is a pound of Wyermann light Munich. All the other kits I have purchased have grains like Crystal in the steeping bag. The instructions say to steep in 2-3 gallons of water(the same for the boil) for 15 minutes. Then proceed with the boil. I've done this with specialty grains and it turned well. From what I understand Munich is a base malt that needs to be mashed. Do you all think it is wise to do a mini mash with the pound of Munich, or just follow the instructions. Does it matter? Thanks for your help.

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Just pour water that is 150 degrees over it and let it sit for 45 mins and your golden!

Thanks so much for the info.

Well I held the Munich in 1.5 quarts of 150 degree water for an hour, and then sparged? it with a quart of 170 degree water. I think it converted. It smelled sugary sweet. Pretty cool to actually see the reaction. Thanks for the tips.