September 3, 2009 - 11:04am
Which malt to buy at home-brew store?
The malt shelf in the home-brew aisle of a local hardware store holds a bewildering parade of exotic titles, none of which say, "Best for Bread"! I was reluctant to spend $20 on the wrong thing, so I slunk away malt-free. The clerk seems clueless about beer-making, much less bread-baking. Is anyone familiar with the typical malt offerings, and which one would be most appropriate? (I know that I could order from an online bread supplier, but I'd rather spend the money on malt than shipping.)
Thanks!
Terri
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I'm a home brewer. To the best of my knowledge, malt extracts, both concentrated and dried, made for beer brewing are non-diastatic. The process to extract the sugars from malted barley (mashing) intentionally exposes the grain to a range of temperatures of which the final highest temperature deactivates the amalyse enzyme. Furthermore, I think most homebrew shop owners wouldn't know what diastatic malt is unless they are advanced bakers too. It's not an important subject for homebrewers.
Malt flour, on the other hand, made by milling malted barley is rich in activated amalyse enzyme, but homebrew shops don't sell malt flour. KA does, but it's realatively expensive. I agree with Dan, if you're using American milled flour you don't need it. If you're milling your own flour you probably do.
If you want malt as a sweetener only, find a homebrew shop that sells concentrated malt extract in bulk. They will probably sell you as little as a pound, or less. Unfortunatly, the major national wholesaler, Crosby and Baker, pre-package Dry Malt Extract in 3 lb. packages, and most malt concentrate manufacturers (if not all) package malt concentrate in 3.3 lb. cans, or larger; most homebrew shops only offer these prepackaged forms. Some, however, do their own as-ordered packaging of concentrates from 55 gal. barrels, but don't hold your breath, I looked at three I shop from online, and none of them offer bulk sales.
Lastly, only buy UNHOPPED malt extract. Hopped extract has an intentional bitter component in its flavor.
David G
Good information. This thread helps me get a handle on the whole malt question.
(I live in the Yakima Valley...you should smell the hops drying in the kilns during harvest. Ghastly! It puts us off beer for months until the memory of that stench fades.)
You need to buy malted grain. Malted rye has more distatic power, wheat slightly less, but still has plenty. Both are fairly common. Stay away from barley. Distatic malts are not roasted, so they look exactly like corresponding grain, but are quite a bit softer, so grinding them in a coffee grinder is a snap. They rarely put diastatic power at the label (although brewers have not one but two units for measuring it) but indicating degree of color is fairly common. Anyting labelled 4 °L or less will be diastatic. For non-diastatic malt you'll probably have to resort to barley, since both rye and wheat are uncommon. Look for medium crystal or caramel malts.
Be careful now ...speaking as an ex-national class brewer (medals to prove it) and as a so-so baker! Most recipes that ask for adding a bit of malt are doing so not for the sweet maltose (higher glycemic index than table sugar, and more easily digestible by yeast), but are doing so for the enzymes. But those dry malts do not have any active enzymes unless the package specifically states "Diastatic Malt" rather than just "Malt". Given the difficulty in finding diastatic malt, I would recommend making your own. It is fun and it is easy. There is a thread here that covers how to do it ...it involves sprouting grain in a jar followed by drying and grinding (coffee grinders work fine.) Anyone can do it and it is far cheaper to make your own than to buy the stuff. Do not buy the whole grain malt you see at the brewing store, but buy whole grain berries from someone who sells them for the purpose of making flour or for planting. Barley and wheat both work fine. We buy whole-berry wheat in 50# bags and grind it ourselves, so it is no bid deal to grab a handful and to sprout it for making our own homemade diastatic malt. And did I mention that it is fun?
Google "Make your own diastatic malt" and then follow the link to the The Fresh Loaf thread and read up ...And if you cannot find the wheat or barley berries (kernels), then check for a local feed and seed type of store. I am betting that even if they do not sell small quantities that they would donate a couple of handfuls to you from a damaged bag...
If you DO find diastatic dry malt in your local brewing store, then do not worry about what color it is, e.g. amber, light, etc. You will only be using a small amount relative to the amount of flour in your formula, so get what you want. I believe the lighter versions will have more active enzymes than the darker, but that is just a guess on my part.
Brian
Brian,
Could I simply take pale ale malted barley, malted wheat, or malted rye (from my brewing supply), crack it and sift it with the same results?
David G.
David,
To some extent you can, but the diastatic power of the whole-grain malt sold at your brewers store is much lower than the make-it-yourself stuff (and lower yet if you buy the powdered malt.) When you make it yourself, you sprout the grain, dry it, bake it at about 100 F for an hour, then grind it into flour. When commercial malt is made, the process is similar, but rather than dry it and bake it at a very low temperature, they bake it longer and at a higher temperature. The brewers malt has to contain some enzymes for the mash, so they do not destroy the enzymes completely (and that is one of the reasons why you always have 2-row in your brewing recipes.) Your 2-row pale malt will probably have the most enzymes since the other malts all get kilned longer and hotter. Does 2-row have enough? Maybe. Probably. Who knows? If your brew supply store sells unmalted barley grain, then you can make your own with that, or buy whole wheat or barley kernels at your local Feed-n-Seed. We buy 50# bags and grind our own flour, so wheat kernels are always at hand ...
Brian
You've obviously studied brewer's malt from a baker's point-of-view. I've only studied them from a brewer's point-of-view. I assumed pale two-row would have all it's amalayse since both its forms are needed for mashing, and it's always recommended when mashing darker malts, but I've never researched the temperatures malt is kilned.
David G