German Dunkel Malt

[Pharmbrewer]

I'm getting ready to brew my oktoberfest and I want to model it after a local breweries (Bayern) oktoberfest. Their website list the grist as pilsner, munich and geman dunkel malt. I have emailed ther brewery and they have not responded yet and I'm comming up on brew day. Any one ever heard of German Dunkel Malt?

I'm thinking it might be a version of carafa special.

Thanks
PB

[NHBrewer]

I would think that something like Carafa would be named by RoastMaltz or something like that. Maybe some sort of Caramel/Crystal malt. Weyermann has lots of caramel malts I would start with something like CaraMunich II. Hope that helps.

Chris

[JohnF]

I doubt there is anything german maltsters call dunkel malt and this is just Bayern's way of semi-translating "german dark malt". I'm guessing carafa special.

It is unfortunate that they have not replied to your email as this is obviously an easy question for them to answer. Have you tried calling the brewery? Whoever answers, if they aren't a brewer, might take a message and you might get a quicker reply.

I guess the most important question is what does the beer taste like? If it tastes like it has caramel malt, then this is probably referring to a caramel malt. If it tastes like it doesn't have caramel malt but seems too dark for something that isn't all munich malt, it is probably carafa.

[uncle_bad_touches]

it could be dark munich. do you taste any caramel malt character in their beer?

[Pharmbrewer]

I don't think its a caramel malt. The beer is very malt forward but not caramely its also very dark for a marzen. So dark in fact It would probably be docked for it in a compitition. Thats why I'm thinking along the carafa lines. Anyway I decided to brew JZ's marzen (can never go wrong with a bcs recipe) and I'll compare the 2 and go from there.

Thanks for the replys.
PB