The Malting Process

Malting is the first step taken to transform barley into beer.It is possible to grind up unmalted barley and add various chemicals to break down the starches and ferment it.This, however, would not taste anything like what one would call beer.The biochemical changes that occur within the barley grain during the malting process allows for all the other chemical reactions downstream in fermentation.

When a farmer harvests the barley, it is generally stored in a large silo for many months.When the maltster orders barley, the barley goes through a sorting process where the grains are separated from debris like star leaves, stones, dirt, and pieces of metal.The grain is also passed over sieves that separate the plumpest barley for making base grains and specialty grains and the small barley is sold as cattle feed.

Once the grains are sorted the maltster will steep the grains in water for approximately 48 hours.Water will enter the barley through the tip of the grain head to the embryo and endosperm .The embryo will begin to respire and at this time the water is drained and the grains are resteeped in order to avoid suffocating the barley.After steeping the barley is headed off to germination.

The steeped barely is moved to a large room or vessel containing a flase floor and has large rotating turners.The barley is spread even across this false bottom and humid air is forced through the floor and barley to oxygenate the grain and protect it from drying out.Here the endosperm will begin to break down and the grain will start to grow a root and shoot.The large rotating turns constantly turn the grain to keep the barley becoming entangled.Once the barley has been modified adequately, it is ready for kilning.

Kilning is the process of heating the barley to dry the barley, halt the growth of the grain so that it doesn’t turn into a plant, and produce the malty flavors found in beer.There are four steps of drying: free drying, restrictive drying, bound water removal, and curing.

Free drying occurs at around 125 degrees Farenheit and high air flow is forced through the grain until the moisture in the grain is reduced to about 25%

Restrictive drying occurs at a slightly higher temperature and the airflow is restricted to allow the water to transfer from inside the grain to the surface.This process takes place until the moisture content is aobut 12%

Bound water removal is a step where the air temperature is raised to 150 degrees Farenheit and continues until the grain moisture content is around 4 to 5%.

Curing is the process of raising the temperatures to specific degrees so as to produce base malts, specialty, malts and dark roasted malts.

Base malts will be kilned for about 24 to 30 hours and specialty and dark malts will take about 48 hours.