goody, the recipe I use from BBA says you can substitute brown sugar or honey for the malt in the dough.  And for boiling, the recipe calls for about 1 T of baking soda.

Hi Goody,

I have the opposite problem, I can't find barly malt syrup anywhere in my area, but I can get a big bag of malt powder.  I've made bagels calling for syrup and I've substituted the powder for the syrup and they tured out just fine (see my post here) so I would figure what you're doing would work...

Good luck!

Tim

PS - OOPS!  I noticed you already saw my post and replied to it.  Can't wait to see yours!

...Try to use a dark Honey.
I always make mine with Sourwood Honey and everyone loves them.

I had one HECK of a time finding malt syrup or powder, looked in all the health food stores and had no luck save in one (eventually) that had a 450g jar (about 2 cups) for $13. No way... I was on the hunt for it at that time looking to get a couple of teasponns to get a starter going. This was following the Mike Avery starter info for Clavel's starter. Needless to say, I passed on $13 for 2 teaspoons. 

Then I located a nearby brew-your-own-beer store and they have malt syrup (light, med. or dark, I got light), I got a half liter for $2.50. They didn't have powder as they say it's hard to keep, any moisture and it lumps right back up. Malt powder can be substituted with syrup at a ratio of about 1 powder to 1.2 liquid.