Substituting Munich for pale 2-row

My LHBS was wiped out by the Christmas/New Year's rush. No bags of 2-row of any kind were to be found. This guy has been known to forget to order shipments, I waited a month once for him to get new grain and fermenters. I am generally impatient, so I picked up a bag of Munich instead.

I am doing a Bass ale clone, substituting Munich for pale malt. Has anyone tried this? I have read that it can be done, but I have not seen any posts of what the result is. In any case, I will know in about 6 weeks.

You can certainly use Munich as a base malt, but you're not going to be making a Bass clone anymore! I like Munich a lot, I've been using it in a lot of my recipes, but it's a lot darker and "maltier" than base malt. Personally, I'd forget about making the clone and develop a new recipe around what I had for ingredients. The porter I made at Glib's house had a lot of Munich (either 3 or 5#, IIRC). What else do you have for ingredients?

Isn't Munich a bit less modified than most 2-Row pale base malts? You may want to keep this in mind when formulating a recipe. Your efficiency may not be where it normally is w/out the enzymes you would get from your traditional base malt.

I'm sure someone will let me know if I am wrong on this.

I'm not sure if it's technically less modified or if some of the enzymes have been denatured by the kilning process, but yeah, you can't count on Munich to convert much more than itself. No adding oats or anything like that to the malt (unless you have some 6-row kicking around). Shouldn't be a problem if the other ingredients are crystal malts and others that don't really need converting.

It won't be Bass. Major maltiness, even Octoberfests rarely go over 60% Munich. Should be very interesting, so post the final recipe and keep us posted.

Some beers use Munich as base malt exclusively, don't they? I'm pretty sure that's the advice I received when formulating my quasi-altbier.

Incidentally, I'm tasting this for the first time since bottling, Munich is 47% of the grist, and it is excellent. Good hoppiness against a very smooth malt backbone. My best to date.

you can make a great pale ale with munich malt. it is nice and malty.

15 lbs muncih malt
1 lbs 60l
a bunch of noble german hops
london ale yeast

yummy!

the_bird said:

Some beers use Munich as base malt exclusively, don't they? I'm pretty sure that's the advice I received when formulating my quasi-altbier.

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Lots of German beers use Munich exclusively (at least traditionally)...that was what they had. Oktoberfests, Maerzens, Doppelbocks can and do use Munich as the exclusive base malt. American microbrewers might not do many 100% Munich beers, but that's a different story altogether.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Lots of German beers use Munich exclusively (at least traditionally)...that was what they had. Oktoberfests, Maerzens, Doppelbocks can and do use Munich as the exclusive base malt. American microbrewers might not do many 100% Munich beers, but that's a different story altogether.

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I have a feeling I'll be buying Munich in bulk before all is said and done....

Incidentally, what's the difference between Vienna and Munich? I always see them lumped in together; is Vienna just a little lighter and a little less malty, but still basically the same?

the_bird said:

I have a feeling I'll be buying Munich in bulk before all is said and done....

Incidentally, what's the difference between Vienna and Munich? I always see them lumped in together; is Vienna just a little lighter and a little less malty, but still basically the same?

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Yep, Vienna is kilned a little less, usually to ~3.5L while Munich is kilned to 6L and up. I used 6L in an Oktoberfest and while it was good and malty I wasn't entirely satisfied with the color and maltiness. I just brewed a Doppelbock with a combination of the 6L and 10L from Weyermann (Types I and II) so I'll see how that goes.

I've seen Munich as high as 30L, but I've never tried it...probably pretty weak diastatically speaking.

I'm debating between Munich and Vienna for this weekend's pale ale. I love Munich, but I'd like to give Vienna a try for giggles. Plus, I'm calling it "Paler Than Gonzaga" for March Madness, so it wants to stay kinda light. Two pounds of Vienna (plus a half pound of crystal 20) sound good for a 1048 - 1050 OG?

Sounds great to me...I frequently use a pound of Munich in APA's and a pound or two of Vienna should work swimmingly.

BTW, Gonzaga's coach looked pretty freakin' pale last night...

I did buy light and dark Weyermann Munich malt in bulk and will be using it a lot in the future. I'm curious how a 100% dark munich Munich Dark (what a play on words ) will taste. But My Doppelbock showed me that 100% dark Munich doesn't do so well in a tripple decoction due to the low enzymatic strength. Weyerman claims that it can be used to 100% in a mash. But they probably mean a step infusion mash. A single infiusion mash may not be good either for the dark munich malt.

As for Vienna, its right between light Munich and Pilsner and some malsters supposedly sell a blend of Pilsner and light Munich as Vienna.

Kai

This is from memory, it is the recipe from the BYO magazine.

10 gallons

14 lbs. Munich Malt Type 1
4 lbs. Flaked Corn
1/4 lbs. Roasted Barley
1 lb. Crystal 120
3/4 oz. Northern Brewer 60 mins
1/2 oz. Fuggles 15 mins. (this was a substitution, pretty sure Bass uses some Fuggles.)
Whirlfloc
British Ale yeast

I figured this would be maltier than normal, but I really have no idea how much more. I will probably mash it at 148 degrees, maybe do a rest at 120. If no one has had any trouble converting, then I won't step mash, but the corn worries me now.

I'll let Kaiser give you the real answer, but the corn scares me, too. This recipe originally was for pale malt instead of Munich?

Yeah, american 2-row for some reason. I would have figured british 2-row but I don't know enough about malt to argue.

How close is the HBS? Does he have any 6-row in stock? (higher enzymatic strength than even 2-row). Couple pounds might make sure that the corn gets converted.

Again, though, I defer to the resident experts.

The Typ 1 munich malt should be strong enough to convert the corn as well. I was talking about the Typ II munich when I was concerned about the diastatic power.

Kai

That is a load off. I won't worry then about doing a step, will just mash at about 148 to dry it out a little. I'll post if anything weird happens during the mash with gravity and or starch tests.

If nothing else, this should be interesting. Thanks all for the help.

Everything went well today; except frequent equipment malfunctions and a mild case of food poisoning.

In between running to the bathroom every 30 mins, I ground the grain and hit my mash temp of 148 perfectly. An hour and a half later, I am able to go back and do a starch test and realize I forgot to add the corn. It had been left in the freezer, it was infested and I didn't want them spreading to my other grains. After adding the corn and readjusting the temp, I waited 30 mins and came back with a negative starch test.

And then promptly ran into my first stuck sparge, corn is so much fun. I didn't even run into a stuck sparge when doing honey wheats, though I used rice hulls then. The corn smell is something else, kinda like a microwaved bowl of corn-pops.

The boil went perfectly. I don't remember who mentioned squirting the hot break with cold water, but that worked like a charm. My brew buddies showed up at this point so they can brag about the beer we make and then left 45 min later.

Chilling was fine, took 20 mins with my immersion chiller, got down to 80 degrees. I started to fill the fermenters when it got stuck again. I have had problems with protein buildup in my boil kettle, it has got to the point where if I don't treat it with a long soak of PBW it becomes stuck. My autosiphon is broken, so I broke out the old racking tube and filled the fermenters.

And then noticed that my starters have had no activity in the last six hours. Checked the expiration date on the yeast that I bought Wednesday, it had expired back in March. My LHBS is really starting to piss me off. Pitched it anyway.

The gravity hit perfectly, 1.050 at 80 degrees. Unfortunately, all I could taste was roasted barley when I took a sample. I still don't know how malty this will be.

Updates will be required. Corn & Munich has some interesting possibilities.

Don't worry....relax...have a homebrew. When it's all done, you'll have more great stories to share, and an excellent beer to share too.

munich is one of my favorites ... someday ill do a majority munich beer