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The term "malt" refers to several products of the process:

• the grains to which this process has been applied, for example malted barley;
• the sugar, heavy in maltose, derived from such grains, such as the baker's malt used in cereals like Shreddies; or
• a product based on malted milk, similar to a malted milkshake (i.e., "malts").

Whisky or beer can also be called malt, as in Alfred Edward Housman's aphorism "malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to Man."

Uses

Maltings

A maltings, sometimes called malthouse, or malting floor, is a building that houses the process of converting barley into malt, for use in the brewing or distilling process. This is done by kiln-drying the sprouted barley. This is usually done by spreading the sprouted barley on a perforated wooden floor. Smoke, coming from an oasting fireplace (via smoke channels) is then used to heat the wooden floor (and thus, the sprouted grain with it). The temperature thus employed is usually around 55° Celsius. A typical floor maltings is a long, single-story building with a floor that slopes slightly from one end of the building to the other. There are a number of maltings buildings still in existence, and a handful are still operational. Floor maltings began to be phased out from the 1940s in favour of 'pneumatic plants'. Here large industrial fans are used to blow air through the germinating grain beds and to pass hot air through the malt being kilned. Like floor maltings these pneumatic plants are batch processes but of considerably greater size, typically 100 tonne batches compared with 20 tonne batches for a floor maltings.

Mashing

It is to be noted that malt is often divided into two categories by brewers: those that need mashing and those that don't need mashing. Light colored malts such as pale ale malt, pilsener malt and malted wheat need to be mashed to convert the starches into fermentable sugars. Specialty malts (ie caramel or crystal malt) don't need to be mashed.

See also

• Mash ingredients
• Beer style
• Malta (soft drink)
• Malt beverage
• Malt liquor

Bibliography

• D.E. Briggs, Malts and Malting, Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers (30 Sep 1998), ISBN 0412298007
• Christine Clark, The British Malting Industry Since 1830, Hambledon Continuum (1 Jul 1998), ISBN 1852851708