barley malt syrup | The Fresh Loaf

Submitted by dhyoung on November 9, 2011 - 5:30pm

Non-diastatic versus Diastatic Matled Barley Syrup?

Hello -

I have taken an interest in bread making and I've been doing a lot of research prior to getting started. I recently obtained a book called "Artisan Breads" written by Eric W. Kastel from a series called, "At Home with The Culinary Institute of America." It is very informative from beginner to experienced baker. The issue I'm running into is an inconsistency with the book and some research I've been doing online (including this site.)

Under Malted Barley, the book is quoted as follows: "Non-diastatic malted barley contains an enzyme that helps break down the flour's carbohydrates into sugars, making them more available to the yeast. This allows the yeast to do a better job fermenting, generally making for a lighter and tastier loaf of bread. It also helps the bread's color. Diastatic malted barley does not contain enzymes and won't work the same way."

When researching online, I am finding the complete opposite information. It appears that Diastatic Malted Barley is the better choice.

Can someone confirm either way? I would like to use this in my recipe, but want to make sure I'm using the proper ingredients.

Thanks!

Dave

14 comments

Submitted by Librarian on April 26, 2011 - 2:21pm

Italian white bread with semolina and wheat germ

I came across this recipe in paper and thought it was worth a try, all the ingredients make this one a pocket full of flavour, which I am sure you will enjoy.

I try my best to explain where and why I deviated from the original recipe with bold and italic letters...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Time to bake: ~ 1h15

Fermentation time: 18 hours sponge ( original ) // 13-14h my way

20 min , another 40 min ( original ) // 30 min autolyse / 1h / 1h

for the final dough.

Makes 2 loaves

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ingredients:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

500g bread flour

250g semolina

150ml(g) milk lukewarm

150ml(g) water lukewarm x2 = 300 ml

60g butter

50g Wheat germs

20g Malt // I used 30g barley malt syrup

10g live yeast = 3.3g dry yeast = 1.1 instant active dry yeast ( If I am correct, please recheck to be sure , i only use live yeast )

some olive oil

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The sponge:

Combine 250g bread flour, 5g of the yeast an 150ml of water to a smooth, pliable dough The recipe didnt specify, I mixed 10 min with my Kitchen Aid on setting 3. I knew in advance that 18h just would not work for me, so I added a teaspoon of sugar to accelerate the process a tiny bit and got away with around 14h. This is a rather small ammount of yeast, the time letting the sponge rest so long is well invested. It should double. I left it in a sealed plastic dough container at room temperature.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The dough:

Mix the sponge with the rest of the bread flour, the semolina the wheat germ, the malt, the rest of the yeast with the milk and melted butter and salt. I melted the butter and added cold milk from the fridge which made the whole thing lukewarm. The recipe states to mix all the ingredients stated above and THEN add another 150ml of water after that, I thought that was rather silly, it is always harder to incorporate liquid into a dough later on than the other way around so I added the warm water with the milk and butter right away.

Knead the dough 10-12 minutes forceful with your hands on a counter well dusted with flour. This is a VERY sticky dough.

The original recipe states to oil up the dough and then let rest for only 20 min at a higher temperature in the oven. Being I worked with semolina before I knew it would take more time to absorb the water so I decided to let the dough autolyse for 30 min. Furthermore it makes it easier to shape the bread and gives more structure.

Much better after 30 min and still slightly sticky, but thats ok. knead again for 2,3 minutes. Instead of 20 min at higher temperature I decided to put oil on the surface as stated, but let the dough rest at room temperature for an hour

Divide the dough in 2 and roll it up on the counter, I am sure you can do better than I did.

Roll over the short edge into loafs:

Let the end be on top like in the picture this way you have the flour on the upside later on. The original states 20 min proofing time. I gave it another hour, covered with a moist towel

The bread will rise a decent ammount, at this point I thought I should maybe have rolled it up much flatter...maybe next time.

Baking:

Bake for 10 minutes at 250Celsius/485 Fahrenheit thend turn down to 190/375. Depending on your oven you might want to keep it open for a few seconds,

250 is rather hot and the bread turned dark very quickly.

I cheated with the flour afterwards abit. I didnt have enough down on the counter when rolling up, I always find it hard to make make rolled up bread like that stick together if you use to much flour, I forgot to add on top before putting it into the oven :(

Here the crust/crumb shot while still cooling off:

Resume:

I will definilty be making this again, the long fermentation adds suprising taste for "just" a yeast bread. The wheat germ adds a slightly nutty taste along with the texture of the semolina this is a very good bread. When I had a taste while it still was a bit warm it almost tasted a bit like a panini. I have seen much more ammount of enrichments in other breads, with quite less taste. I do hope, that if you try this you will enjoy every bite of it.

Submitted to YeastSpotting

Submitted by robadar on March 21, 2010 - 3:17pm

Non-diastatic malt

I have some "Aunt Patty's barley malt extract" syrup. I need to know if it is or is not diastatic, for a Maggie Glezer recipe that specifies non-diastatic. An internet search has left me confused and my question unanswered as has a quick search of this website. Anybody know the answer? I'm going to make Glezer's "Thom Leonards country bread" or her "Essentials Columbia Country" bread. Any thoughs on these? Thanks.

3 comments

Submitted by Ryan Sandler on February 15, 2009 - 8:04pm

The Great Bagel Experiment

Since making a foray into pretzels and discovering the impact of a strong-ish baking soda solution on the crust of said pretzels, I've been wondering how different qualities of water affect the results on bagels. I know from around the forums that some do without baking soda, some do a little, some go for malt syrup instead. The Bread Bakers Apprentice recipe (also the one in Floyd's bagel post) calls for 1 tablespoon soda in an unknowable amount of water. By comparison, the concensus in the pretzel thread was 1 tablespoon soda per cup water, a 1/16 solution. But would that work for bagels, or make a pretzel-tasting bagel? I endeavored to find out this morning.

I made up a batch of the BBA bagel dough, shaped and refrigerated last night. This morning I got two pots of water going with 8 cups of water in each, and did six different dipping combinations, with each bagel boiled 1 minute per side. In this first one, from right to left, you can see plain water, 1 tbsp baking soda (the amount called for in the recipe, though probably stronger than usual since I typically use more than 8 cups water), and 4 tbsp baking soda (a 1/32 solution, half the amount recommended on the forums for pretzels).

As you can see, the amount of soda makes a big difference! The rightmost pair in the next pan had 8 tbsp of baking soda--pretzel quantity. It's hard to tell from the picture, but these were much darker than the 1/32 solution pair. After this I switched to the other pot of water, and the last two pairs of bagels were boiled with 1tbsp and 2 tbsp of malt syrup in 8 cups water, respectively. No, it wasn't the camera's fault, I couldn't really tell them apart either.

Of course, this left my wife and me with six type of bagels to taste, and only two taste testers. We tried the 1/32 and 1/16 baking sodas, and one of the malt syrup ones (I think the 2 tbsp, but I forget). The 1/32-solution bagel was quite good, although with a little bit of the alkaline "pretzel" taste in places where a lot of moisture from the pot stuck to the bagel. The 1/16 solution bagel tasted like a bagel in preztel's clothing--pretzel-y on the outside, yet bagel-y on the inside. Weird. The bagel boiled in malt had much the same texture as the 1/32 and 1/128 baking soda bagels, though with a slightly different flavor. My wife and I decided we like the baking soda flavor a bit better, but I figure that's a matter of taste. I think for future I'd shoot for something like a 1/64 or 3/128 solution of baking soda (2-3 tbsp in 8 cups water).

4 comments

Submitted by jonqisu on January 10, 2009 - 10:39am

Making barley syrup from powder

Does anyone know if there is a conversion/recipe to replace or make barley syrup from malt powder? If I've understood what I've read elsewhere, then theoretically malt powder was at one point a syrup, so it should just be a matter of reversing the process. I've done searches here and the rest of the net, but haven't found anything that might suggest how to convert from powder to syrup. I know that you can just buy the syrup, but I thought that it might be nice to be able to convert the powder in a pinch.

This question might pertain more to non-baking applications but I thought that if anyone knew, the wise contributors of TFL would be the ones. Thanks!

6 comments

Submitted by ehanner on July 23, 2007 - 12:22pm

Malted Barley Syrup

I'm about to put together a formula of Mountaindog's version of Thom Leonards country french. I was wondering if anyone has had luck with using Malted Barley Syrup to make a more interesting flavor? I have used this in the past but I've never been sure it really matters much to the flavor. I do know the bacteria likes the extra food that the syrup provides. Any thoughts? Mountaindog?

Eric