Munich Dunkel

[Barley Water]

I brewed the second beer in my German lager series yesterday a Munich Dunkel. The formulation is simple, Munich malt and just a little Carafa to help with the color. This time I wanted to make it just a little more malty so I added 4oz of Melodin malt. I also did a double decoction (boiled each one for 30 minutes) and also pulled off some of the first runnings and boiled it also (until very dark brown). It sure does make the house smell good since I boil the decoction on the kitchen stove rather than try to control the heat on my propane burners (those damn things burn stuff way too easily). I pitched the yeast that I harvested from my Helles batch done a few weeks ago, this makes getting a really big starter going easy and also saves a little money. I got the wort down to pitching temperature by pumping ice water through my counter flow chiller and afterwards racked the wort off the cold break before pitching the yeast. Fermentation temperature is set for 49F and I guess I will do a diacetyl rest after I see things slow down before racking to secondary. I started at a little before 8:00am and finished about 3:30pm, not a bad day at all (plus OG was at the target of 1.055 plus 1 point, life is good). My plan is to harvest the yeast from this batch and step it up again to try and ferment a double bock for the Christman holidays. After that, it will be time to get back into the ales and get ready for our big contest in March.

[mysterio]

All Munich malt as the base then? I tried some wonderful dunkels in Munich this year, delicious beer.

[Barley Water]

Yup, the Munich malt makes for a very malty beer that is not overly sweet (if I can get the beer to attenuate the way I want it to). I have made this beer once before and I was very happy with the way it came out, I am now trying to tweek the formulation just a little in hopes of winning something in competitions. I agree with you though, it is also one of my favorite styles.