Iron Brewer Challenge!

[Seedly]

I recently had a little error with an online homebrew shop and need a little help figuring out what to do with the results.

I ordered 10# of Belgian Pilsner and 2# of Munich for a Belgian Golden. I actually ended up with 12# of Munich. Customer Service was nice and replaced my Pilsner along with a $20 gift certificate since my Labor Day brew weekend got ruined.

The Belgian turned out fine and is sitting in bottles now, but I am left with a conundrum...What do I do with the 10# of Munich malt?

My understanding is that Munich is kilned at a higher temperature than Pale malts, leading to a maltier profile but lower diastatic activity. Supposedly it can be used as a base malt and will convert on its own, but as Ive only done 2 all grain BIAB batches so far I am a bit nervous to go that route.

Any recipe suggestions? I thought of doing a 50/50 blend with 2-row and a bit of Chocolate malt for a porter, but as Ive never really used Munich, I dont know exactly what qualities it would bring to the beer.

Challenge: Id like to get a totally free batch out of this if possible. Under $20 on additional ingredients is a plus.

 

[LoneWolfPR]

If you have the ability to lager, look at doing a munich dunkel.

 

[LoneWolfPR]

You could use all the munich and a bit of the chocolate for color. use noble hops and pitch a good lager yeast.

 

[dbrewski]

You don't need to use it all in one batch. I love Munich and use 2-3lbs in my pale and amber ales. I just reached for some this morning while brewing and realized I was out. Bummer! I substituted Vienna.

 

[HOPCousin]

You could make a robust porter... something like:

73% 2 row
12% crystal 120L
8% Munich
5% Chocolate
2% Black Patent

or if you can't lager you can cheat an octoberfest with that yeast and use 50% Munich and 50% 2 row with a touch of chocolate.

You can save that Munich and spread it out over several different styles and batches. Great malt.

 

[Wayne1]

What temperatures can you ferment at?

If you can ferment at lager temps, a Munich Dunkel would be perfect.

Use all your Munich with 4-6 oz of Carafa Special II. Add around 20 ibu of noble hops for 60 min and 3 ibu for 20 min.

White Labs WLP833, Wyeast 2308 or Saflager dry S-23.

This is based on a recipe by Jamil for Munich Dunkel

 

[Seedly]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I suppose I will take the advice above and spread it across several batches. sadly I don't really have the ability to lager, so that makes doing most german styles harder

 

[Yooper]

I'd probably go with all of the Munich, and some noble hops, and make a beer. Munich can self convert, no problem, and you can make a very nice rich German ale with 100% Munich. That's what I'd do!

 

[JesperX]

German Smash with a noble hop of your choice. Cheap, simple, and drinkable as hell.

Munich + Saaz would be nice.

 

[kingwood-kid]

There are a lot of different Munich malts. Briess kilns theirs to 10L or 20L, the rest of the world kilns their light munich to 5-6 and their dark to 8-10. Knowing which of these 4 products you have would help. The Briess malts can't be used as base malts; the rest can. I recently made a Doppelsticke Alt with 80% Light Munich. Since I had the same reservations you did about diastatic power, I added 20% malted wheat, although 2-row, 6-row or pils would have served the same purpose.