How To Floor Malt Barley

The cereal is spread out on the malting floor in a layer of 8 to 12 cm 3 to 4 5 in depth.

How to floor malt barley.

Floor malting is the historic technique of preparing barley for fermentation. Turning it into malted barley. Seeing the sea of grain on the floor the smouldering bricks of peat in the kiln and the blue smoke wafting from the pagoda roof it all seemed wonderfully artisan and self contained. The favored floor material for european floor maltings has always been tiles quarried only in the bavarian village of solnhofen.

While floor malting was largely supplanted by industrial scale drum malting in the 20th century the older methods offer a hands on opportunity to produce unique malt with. After steeping the grain the floor malting process requires the wet grain to be put on a smooth concrete floor while it germinates. Mine was bowmore where i was taken around by the then manager jim mcewan. Once properly hydrated the malt is then sent not to a germination chamber but to a floor where it is spread evenly by hand into an approximately 15 cm 6 inch thick layer.

Start with a large bucket that can handle the grains plus enough water to float all of the grains. Most of the 100 distilleries in scotland purchase malted barley from commercial malting plants and most all of the distilleries that do floor malting also purchase additional malt from commercial malters. Floor malting of sorghum and millet is a traditional craft that has been carried out throughout africa for hundreds of years. Floor malting offers the small brewer or distiller an opportunity to source barley from farmers in their area and turn it into malt the backbone of beer and malt whiskey.

In a modern malt house the process is more automated and the grain is germinated on a floor that is slotted to allow air to be forced through the grain bed. This guide shows how traditional fl oor malting can be scaled up into a. We produce small batch handcrafted malt using techniques which date back to when the malting floors were built in the 1870s. The first step in home malting is to steep the barley in water to begin the germination process.

Over the course of four or five days the grains germinate and produce that sweet sweet sugar that is fermented into alcohol. Malting is the process of converting barley or other cereal grains into malt for use in brewing distilling or in foods and takes place in a maltings sometimes called a malthouse or a malting floor. Add water until all of the grains are floating and let the grains sit in the water for 2 hours. A traditional floor malting germinates the grains in a thin layer on a solid floor and the grain is manually raked and turned to keep the grains loose and aerated.