Melanoidin malt substitute?

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GLWIII

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I am planning a Three Floyds Alpha King recipe and the one I found at http://www.brew365.com/beer_three_floyds_alpha_king.php with the following grain bill:

12 lbs. - 2 Row Pale Malt
1 lb. - Crystal Malt (60L)
1/4 lb. - Special B Malt
1/8 lb. - Melanoidin Malt

My local brew shop has everything except the melanoidin. I don't want to place an order online and pay shipping for a mere 2 oz. of malt. For purposes of this recipe will I likely notice a difference by just leaving off that malt or is there a suitable substitute that might work?

Geo
 
Chances are you'll never miss it, but I suppose you could do a half-ass single decoction to mass-out and accomplish the same thing. To be honest, though, I'm not sure that would even work with plain 2-row or if you need to use Pilsner malt.
 
Decoction might get you there or maybe sub in some dark munich malt for some two-row to get your melanoidins. If I were figuring out how much munich to add, I would figure out the color contribution of 1/8 lbs of 25-30 Lovibond Melanoidin malt and then calculate how much of x Lovibond munich you would need to get that same color. I associate darkness of malt color in this low range with melanoidins, so this might be a way to add an equal amount of them to your brew
 
My impression is that melanoidin malt exists solely as a substitute for doing a decoction, so definitely decoct away to sub for it. If you're not comfortable with some of the excellent decoction schedules on the wiki, you can always just decoct for the mashout.
 
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