The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Malt flour

moreyello's picture
moreyello

Malt flour

Hi from Montreal, I've been calling baking shops around the city looking for diastatic malt flour. The only

thing close I've come to is Malt flour. How would I know if it's diastatic or non. This is for a panttone recipe.

Thanks for your help, Roberto

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

I'm in Montreal, and would love to know where you found the malt flour.

moreyello's picture
moreyello

The only place so far is a shop called Papillon on HWY 40 and Boul St.Jean.

I've also spoke to the owner of the bulk food shop in Atwater market and told

me he would be ordering it.

Roberto

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

I'll check it out.  Thanks again!

xaipete's picture
xaipete

I think this is what you are looking for:

Malted Barley Flour
Malted Barley Flour, also known as Diastatic Malt, improves the flavor and appearance of yeast breads. Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon for every 3 cups of flour in your favorite bread recipe to give the loaves a slightly sweet flavor and moist texture. Malted Barley Flour also prolongs the shelf life of baked goods.

http://www.bobsredmill.com/malted-barley-flour.html

--Pamela

pjaj's picture
pjaj

There are two types of malt - diastatic and non diastatic. The UK malt producer, Muntons, defines them as follows:-

Diastatic
Diastatic malt extracts possess varying degrees of enzyme activity. In bread baking the alpha amylase content can be used to improve the potential for fermentable sugars for yeast activity, thus enhancing gas production during fermentation and final loaf volume. Diastatic malt extracts can be used not only for the production of the traditional sticky malt loaf, but also as an improver in years when the naturally occurring levels of alpha amylase in wheat flour are low.
Higher diastatic extracts are used for the conversion of cereal starches into glucose syrups.

Non Diastatic
In bread baking, non-diastatic malt flour is used to enhance flavour, to provide sugars for yeast activity and product colour.
It is also used in breakfast cereals and biscuits, malted milk drinks and ice cream, sugar confectionery and chocolate confectionery to impart the traditional malty flavour as either an additional tone, or as a complementary flavour enhancer.

Malt products come in two forms flour (powder) and extract/syrup (liquid). I live in the UK, but I found the following link to the KA site

Diastatic Malt

I know nothing more about this as KA products are not available in the UK.

Chuck's picture
Chuck

Much of the diastatic malt that's available to the general public comes in the form of "Malted Barley Flour". I for one initially found this terminology extremely confusing. Not until I began searching for "Barley" did I find many of the sources of diastatic malt. I never would have guessed that "Diastatic Malt Flour" and "Malted Barley Flour" are usually two different names for the same thing. Who knew?


Also, North American flours (but not in most other parts of the world) usually have some diastatic malt already mixed right into the flour you buy (it's usually listed in the small print of the ingredient label:-). With these flours, diastatic malt often doesn't make as much difference as you expect, and it's awfully easy to get "too much" (which causes a very gummy crumb).

What this means is that if you're making a European recipe with U.S./Canadian flour, you may not need to add the diastatic malt the recipe calls for at all.

nicodvb's picture
nicodvb

Here I found more often malted wheat flour than malted barley flour, generally even  with an higher diastatic power (10000 instead of 8000).

Anyway, I agree with Chuck that "malt flour" should be the diastatic malt powder Moyerello is looking for.