Help me with impulse buy (Munich LME)

[Llamaman]

Hi all

I got carried away with the Beer Hawk clearance sale and bought 3kg of munich LME. Apparently it's 50% munich and 50% pale.
Now I need to work out how to use it, having never knowingly worked with munich before (it may have been in some amber DMEs I've used...).

The difficult bits - due to space constraints I can only brew 15L or less at a time, so using all of this in one brew will produce a monster. So I think I need to use it across 2 brews, storing half in the fridge for a few weeks.

My thoughts were;
1. A British bitter, replacing the usual pale LME with munich LME, and dialling back on the steeped crystal to compensate.
2. An altbier, using the CML kolsch yeast? What sort of hops should I use for this - I currently only have British hops (Challenger, Northdown, Target, Fuggles, EKG) and a small amount of Saaz. Should I order a small bag of Tettnang from CML? Also, would this need lager-cold conditioning or would a shed do?

I'd appreciate your thoughts and comments (prayers optional), even if it's just "stop buying stuff you don't know how to use"!

 

[MmmBeer]

Munich malt gives a deep red colour and a toasty flavour. You can easily make a nice bitter or red IPA, but not being a lager fan, I couldn't advise on Altbier etc.

I would use some steeped light or medium crystal to soften and compliment the toasty notes and use Challenger, Northdown or Target for bittering and Fuggles or EKG for flavour / aroma. Stick it through some brewing software to get the ABV, IBU's and colour where you want them and you're away.

 

[AdeDunn]

Why don't you try it out on a 5 litre brew on it's own, hopped with some EKG perhaps? Keep the IBUs at around 30-40 maybe. It'll give you a really good idea of what it brings to the table. Yeast, you could throw the Kolsch yeast at it yeah, or a Saison yeast, depending on your preference. Or even a nice Kveik.... lol

I don't extract brew, but I do use munich malt quite extensively, in almost every beer I make in fact, and love the malt complexity it brings to the table. It's especially delicious in a porter. Never gone as high as 50% though, more around the 19-20% mark usually.

 

[Llamaman]

Ooh, I like the idea of using a saison yeast - then I can brew it alongside another brew (only have room for 1 temp controlled FV).

Good shout. I was thinking of doing a dark saison at some point, but hadn’t put 2 and 2 together. Thankyou!

 

[MyQul]

You could make some pseudo lagers if you got some CML cali common yeast. Challenger makes a good 'English Lager' hop as it has spicy notes

 

[Llamaman]

You could make some pseudo lagers if you got some CML cali common yeast. Challenger makes a good 'English Lager' hop as it has spicy notes

I’m not normally a lager person, but I suppose with summer approaching the old cold one could slip down nicely.
How does a pseudo lager work - ferment like an ale and cold condition, or do you just condition it like an ale and chill to serve?

 

[MyQul]

I’m not normally a lager person, but I suppose with summer approaching the old cold one could slip down nicely.
How does a pseudo lager work - ferment like an ale and cold condition, or do you just condition it like an ale and chill to serve?

A true lager is cold fermented (9C-12C) then cold conditioned (around about 0C). As I dont have lager fridge I normall pseudo lager on my kitchen floor, which gets down to about 14C during the coldest part of winter. Then dont bother to cold condition as I have no way to do this.
I mention CML Cali common yeast as it's a lager strain which you can use at ale temps (actually you can use most lager yeasts at ale temps. But the most popular one, W-34/70 is not very flocculant and needs cold conditioning to crash it out of suspension). Its clean, cheap (£1.40 from ebay) and makes a great pseudo lager. Just ferment it like you would do an ale and dont bother cold conditioning if you don't have the ability. Its amazing how lager like you can make a beer without doing any actual lagering

 

[Zephyr259]

50:50 munich to pale? Add some dark crystal and make a bock, that's the proportions for my AG ones. You can pseudo-lager it too, my last one used Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale as it ferments down to 13c.

 

[AdeDunn]

Ooh, I like the idea of using a saison yeast - then I can brew it alongside another brew (only have room for 1 temp controlled FV).

Good shout. I was thinking of doing a dark saison at some point, but hadn’t put 2 and 2 together. Thankyou!

Don't overlook Kveik then if you don't want to use temp control. For example, you can use some of them at room temperature (as in 20-25 degrees C range) and get clean pseudo lager type results, or pump them up to the 30-35 degrees C range (Hothead Ale, Hornindal), or even 40 degrees C (Voss) and get some fruity funky action going on. They're made for brewing without temp control. I can vouch for Hothead Ale been ideal for the purpose in fact, will ferment clean pretty much at room temperature, and drop like a rock, leaving your beer crystal clear.

I'm a full on, never use temp control other than insulating the FV, brewer. So yeah I tend to make my yeast fit whatever the temps I can do for the season are.

 

[MyQul]

I'm similar to @AdeDunn in that I dont use temp regulation and just brew at ambient temps using temp appropriate yeast. Notty (you can get this from Wilko cheap,1.79 iirc, but they just package it as 'English ale yeast') is a good workhorse yeast as it ferments down to 14C and as high as about 27C