Malt mix up

[Tbagger]

So im starting to suspect my local homebrew shop accidentally gave me Munich dark instead of light in the grain bill for my kolsch. I’m a little disappointed but not too upset as it should still be tasty. However, as my inaugural brew at my new house, I was looking for a solid summer kolsch. I guess it’s time to set up my grain mill.

 

[Kent88]

What was the full grist for the recipe? What volume are you making?

 

[Tbagger]

What was the full grist for the recipe? What volume are you making?

5 gallon batch

 

[FastTalker]

Are you basing that off the color of the beer in the fermenter? In my experience it always appears darker in the fermenter. You’re looking through more beer (and yeast) than you are used to looking through in a pint glass. How long was your boil? You may have made it darker with a long boil.

 

[FastTalker]

Also dark Munich malt isn’t significantly darker.

 

[SanPancho]

Dark ranges from under 10 to as much as 28L. Depende on the maltster. But gambrinus makes a 28L munich, so entirely possible they goofed your Canadian munich. Thats pretty dark.

 

[FastTalker]

Dark ranges from under 10 to as much as 28L. Depende on the maltster. But gambrinus makes a 28L munich, so entirely possible they goofed your Canadian munich. Thats pretty dark.

Even at 28L you're only going to add 1-2 SRM with 1lb of it.

 

[SanPancho]

Your opinion is that there no real difference between a weyerman at 7-9 and gambrinus at 28?

His base is pils and wheat. Srm should be about 2ish. That aint 2. Yes it will settle and lighten, but not down to 2-2.5.

 

[FastTalker]

His SRM should be 4ish based on his original recipe. If it was a 28L Munich, a pound it still only takes it up to 6.

 

[SanPancho]

We show high 2s, maybe 3. Whichever you wanna use, that aint 3 or 4 either.

And the fact that 1 pound makes a jump from 3-4 to 6 is exactly the point. M28 is nothing like 7-8-9 or even 10. Which is your statement.

OP, the other possibility is mash ph being high, which can lead to dark wort.

put them both together and you get something much darker than expected.

 

[FastTalker]

Not sure why you keep thinking it should be 2. It would be 2 without either light or dark munich. Regardless, I was just trying to offer some suggestions of other potential causes. But like most things on the internet someone has to butt in and explain how they know everything and everyone else is wrong.

 

[SanPancho]

Quick recap-
1- the purpose of this forum is for people to chime in in response
2- if I “butted in” then what did you do? Were you personally invited?
3- saying dark Munich is no different than light is simply wrong. You are Especially wrong with regard to Canadian Munich as I am relating that gambrinus dark Munich - from Canada- is 28L. Huge difference from some light Munich malts are in the 7-8-9 range. The Munich malt is what the OP is questioning, and it’s listed as Canadian. Pretty damn plausible they gave him the dark Canadian instead of light.
4- you’re welcome to quibble about srm calcs, I’m not running anyone’s grain bill for them. If you say 4, fine. Let’s call it 4. If M28 is used by mistake you say that’s an srm of 6. That’s 150% of the intended srm. That’s a very big difference I’d say. Never seen a kolsch that wasn’t yellow or gold.

It’s funny that you accuse me of knowing everything and showing off, and implying that’s the problem with a forum like this. Because I think the more relevant issue here is that you spout off like you are the one to know everything, yet you are either unaware of or refusing to acknowledge information contrary to your position.

Being right doesn’t make me happier, more handsome, richer, or anything like that. I get no benefit. You however have an opportunity to turn a misguided opinion into a little more knowledge.

Instead you wanna ignore the facts and play Blame the Other Guy.

Okey dokey.

 

[FastTalker]

Calm down

 

[chickypad]

I find beersmith is usually pretty close on color, I get 4.0 for Canadian Munich 10 that you originally planned on, 5.8 if you swap that lb out for 28 L, and 3.0 if you swap it out for another lb of pilsner. So light gold to dark gold range. Hard to say with the lighting in your pic but I get the sense that will look amber in the fermenter when it settles out. Which means it would look golden in the glass hopefully. Kind of like the pics in this thread post #8, though in this one the beer has cleared and those fermenters appear back lit.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/triple-belgian-looks-like-a-red-ale.399222/#post-5030852

 

[Jayjay1976]

I think they misread your recipe and gave you 7.5lbs of Munich and 1lbs of pilsener.
7.5lbs of Munich in a 5 gallon batch, whether light or dark would result in a color like that.

Should still be tasty! BTW I use Kölsch yeast as my house strain for just about everything except trappist ales. It makes delicious beers, light or dark. Maybe turn this into a happy accident and age this batch for fall, in the meantime brew another Kölsch next weekend!

Also, +1 on getting your own mill. I strongly recommend the Cereal Killer, $99 with free shipping.
https://www.homebrewing.org/Cereal-Killer-Grain-Mill_p_2310.html

 

[SanPancho]

Calm down

Cool as a cucumber, friend.

Maybe you oughta sing yourself a song- Let it go.

 

[SanPancho]

Good point. That’s just as likely. Vienna /dunkel seems like a similar color to that wort.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Calm down

Cool as a cucumber, friend.

You two need to hug it out. Sheesh.

 

[SanPancho]

Not sure i agree. If disagreeing with someone, and pointing out some factual basis for it, is a reason to be accused of breaking the internet (or this forum) then i think we're beyond hugs.

although i cant understand why disagreeing over malt color would rise to the level of something that even needed to be hugged out in the first place.

reason and logic are out. its a post-facts world now, if it feels right then thats what counts.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Not sure i agree. If disagreeing with someone, and pointing out some factual basis for it, is a reason to be accused of breaking the internet (or this forum) then i think we're beyond hugs.

although i cant understand why disagreeing over malt color would rise to the level of something that even needed to be hugged out in the first place.

reason and logic are out. its a post-facts world now, if it feels right then thats what counts.

Spin off on tangents much?

 

[FastTalker]

Dunkel? Now it's just getting ridiculous.

 

[FastTalker]

You two need to hug it out. Sheesh.

I wish we could, but my mom said I'm not allowed to hug strangers.

 

[SanPancho]

I wish we could, but my mom said I'm not allowed to hug strangers.

man, im actually laughing out loud. nice one.

 

[SanPancho]

and for the record, dunkel literally means dark in german.

play nice kids. im out.

 

[Tbagger]

Thanks for the input guys. I am new to brewing on my own. I was recently given my dads brewery as he is getting too old to do a lot of brewing. We used to brew a lot together at his house but I would just be there for brew day and later to help him drink it. So I am new to recipe creation (this being my first one) and knowing how much the different grains affect the beer. I just thought something looked off from the darkness of the beer as compared to the grain bill. I'm not sure what company my LHBS used for his Canadian malts as it was a substitution for the German Munich I wanted. But needless to say I'm sure it will be drinkable and tasty.

 

[Tbagger]

Are you basing that off the color of the beer in the fermenter? In my experience it always appears darker in the fermenter. You’re looking through more beer (and yeast) than you are used to looking through in a pint glass. How long was your boil? You may have made it darker with a long boil.

Yeah, I'm basing it off the color of it in it's primary but even though it's more beer to look through, I don't see it lightening up to be the 4.1 SRM that the recipe called for. As for the boil, it was 60min.

 

[Tbagger]

OP, the other possibility is mash ph being high, which can lead to dark wort.

I have not done a water test at my new house yet but plan to in the near future.

 

[Tbagger]

I think they misread your recipe and gave you 7.5lbs of Munich and 1lbs of pilsener.
7.5lbs of Munich in a 5 gallon batch, whether light or dark would result in a color like that.

Should still be tasty! BTW I use Kölsch yeast as my house strain for just about everything except trappist ales. It makes delicious beers, light or dark. Maybe turn this into a happy accident and age this batch for fall, in the meantime brew another Kölsch next weekend!

Also, +1 on getting your own mill. I strongly recommend the Cereal Killer, $99 with free shipping.
https://www.homebrewing.org/Cereal-Killer-Grain-Mill_p_2310.html

Yeah, who knows what I actually got for grains. I thought it might be dark instead of light but it could be anything including what I asked for. lol

As for the grain mill, I have a 3 roller crankandstein that I finished setting up since I posted this. It was rusty from being in storage so it took a little TLC and an acid bath to clean it up. Should be good to go for my next brew day next week.