First craft beer ingredient: the malt

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Chiara Chi@ra
First craft beer ingredient: the malt

Everything starts in the fields, as mentioned in the article “Craft Vs Industrial Beer” it has always be noticed, since the first Mesopotamian civilizations, how special these cereals are.


"Generally the term malt refers to a series of cereals that are subjected to malting, they can be wheat cereals, barley, rice, etc... Depending on the cereal used, the final result will give its name and type regardless from the roasting phase (secondary process), so we will have wheat malt, malt barley, etc. " 


 

The grain, the caryopsis, must be treated in a particular way to trigger the various chemical reactions that will be exploited during the various production cycles. 

The caryopsis is composed of three components: 

    • Endosperm: the body of the caryopsis, the white inner part, rich in starch.  
    • Germ  
    • Bran 

Immersion and Germination 
To trigger the processes it is necessary that the caryopsis start germination, just as the grain would be too complex at the molecular level but starting the germination the starch molecules break down into starch, simple sugars and many of the enzymes that will be used to make the pour after the roasting phase. 

To start germination, it is therefore necessary to immerse the cereals in water for about 48 hours and then germinate. 
The final result of this phase is commonly called "green malt". 
 
Drying and Roasting 

To become dry malt, raw material for beer, whiskey and many other products that require the fermentation of the malt, it must be dried in order to interrupt germination and also to define the organoleptic characteristics and color. 

This phase lasts on average 48 hours, in a ventilated environment at 40 ° C and has the aim of reducing humidity and stopping germination which, in this phase, will have reached the length of the kernels, I know I like the term .. the grain ok?! In order to increase the enzymatic characteristics of the "grain", another roasting phase will be required which brings the dried malt up to 100 ° C and more for another 48 hours. At the end of this step, other types of maltings can be obtained by adding further roasting phases to produce black, amber, caramelized malts, etc. The various types of malt are defined by the duration, by the temperatures and by the number of passages, for example: 


- Vienna malts low temperature roasting 

- Medium pale malts 

- Czech malts slow and gradual drying and high roasting 

- Munich malts low roasted and retosted at high temperatures  

- Amber malts, rapid high temperature roasting maintained until color 

- Etc. 

And so on.. 

The malt also defines the sweetness of the beer, in fact it defines a flavor, malty, a sweet and full-bodied flavor. Upon fermentation, not all sugars will be fermentable and these remain in the beer, the so-called "dextrins". 


Stay tuned...the next article will be about yeast!!..





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