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MALT  FOR  HOME  BREW  BEER

Malt for home brewed beer making comes in a concentrated form blended with hops in a beer can kit; it comes concentrated in a gooey liquid in a can; or it is available in a dehydrated powder; or you can make it yourself from barley grain.
 
Beer is made with malt for flavour and fermentable sugars, brewing hops for bitterness and delicate flavours, beer yeast for a controlled fermentation, cane sugar or grain sugar for extra alcohol and drinking quality water.
 
Malt is crucial to home brew beer making. As you can imagine there have been hundreds of years of tradition for making malt. Those who make malt are called ‘maltsters’. The malt comes from grain and barley malt is the most used home brew malt; but, sometimes from wheat. So how do the maltsters get that good ingredient for your home brew beer?
 
Method
 
To convert grain into malt, the traditional method is to soak the grain in water until the grain starts to sprout. At this stage the grain thinks it is going to start growing and creates its own soluble starches as food to support growth of the new sprout. And then….Gotcha! Into the oven for the prize meal of roasted grain with desirable malt for further treatment to extract those soluble starches. 

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Mashing
 
The process of extracting the malts is called ‘mashing’ and the basic procedure is to soak the roasted grain in water at a fixed temperature to activate enzymes that will bring out the soluble malts. If the grain is first cracked after roasting, this process is made easier and more effective for recovering the malts. As a home brewer, only buy roasted grain that has already been cracked. See Traditional Home Brew Making for more details on mashing.

Sparging
 
After mashing the grain, strain off the liquid that then becomes the brewing wort.  If the mashing vessel or 'tun' has a drain tap, open and drain the liquid.  Extra malt sugars can be saved by spraying the left over grains with hot water (not boiling).
  
Powdered Malt
 
The liquid malt produced by mashing is dehydrated and powdered malt is the result; much like instant coffee. Depending on the amount of roasting and thereby the colour, the main powdered malts for making home brew beer are: Light Malt, Amber Malt and Dark Malt.   For home brew stout you would use Crystal Malt and Black Malt; and once again, the colour is determined by the roasting. Powdered malt can be proportioned to replace sugar or dextrose when using a beer can kit: e.g. 25% light malt + 25% Amber malt + 50% sugar to make up 1 kg total added sugars.
 
Liquid Malt Extract
 
Malt extract is available in liquid form and comes in a can. It has the consistency of syrup and is produced by evaporating the liquid from the mashing process to the desired concentrated consistency.   Crystal malt syrup could be added to a can kit for making home brew stout or dark ale for extra body and flavour.  A can of liquid malt does not contain hops and can thus be used for unhopped malt beer.
 
For the home brew beer making enthusiast, making your wort by mashing the grain and adding the hops gives a great deal of pleasure and unlimited variations to your own favourite malty hoppy drop. When you consider you can choose from dozens of varieties of can kits and add some extra liquid or powdered malt to suit your own taste, life for the modern day home brewer is easy with the readily available varieties of malt for home brew beer.
 
 
 
 

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