December 9, 2017 - 9:43am
Roasted barley flour, malted?
If malted barley is just barley that has been roasted. Would roasting barley flour be malted flour?
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If malted barley is just barley that has been roasted. Would roasting barley flour be malted flour?
I am unaware that malted barley is simply roasted barley.
You might want to research diastatic and non-diastatic malt.
I’m under the impression that malted barley is first sprouted and after that it is roasted. If during the roasting the temperature does not exceed a certain temperature ( I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 150F or so) then it is diastatic malt. Else if hotter it is non diastatic.
I like to use Briess Dark Chocolate Malt. I buy it whole and them grind it on an as need basis. I like the flavor and also the dark color that it provides. It will darken the loaf without over cooking it.
Dan
Yes, that's about right. To make malt, barley is steeped in water overnight, then drained and germinated. During germination, air is blown through the germination vessel to encourage growth and remove CO2, or, in floor malting, the "piece" is regularly turned by hand on the malting floor for the same reason.
When the acrospire (shoot) is 2/3rds way up the grain, the green malt is kilned. Lager and pale ale malts are kilned at a low enough temperature to retain lots of enzymatic (diastatic) activity. As you make darker malts, there is less and less activity remaining. Chocolate malt would have no enzymatic activity left at all.
In actual fact the darker malts are made in a separate process where they start with already kilned pale ale malt and re-roast it. Apparently it's pretty hairy to do as the process is exothermic and has been the cause of a good few maltings fires in the past!
Crystal malt is a special case where the kilning of the malt is paused at mashing temperature of 66C/150F and this allows some of the malt starch to be converted to sugars prior to more kilning, give sweet toffee-like flavours - nice in small quantities, but cloying if too much is used (I'm talking beer now).
Of course you can also make malt extract from the malt you have made, either concentrated liquid or spray dried powder. Malt extract can be diastatic or non-diastatic.
Malting in a nutshell!
Lance
I got excited about using malt after learning a little from ”lazy loafer”. So I found a home brew store and bought a bunch of different types. As you stated chocolate malt is non diastatic, but what about the lighter malts? What about a Crystal 10 or 20? I think they use litner numbers for designation. But I know little about this.
How can we know what is diastatic and what is not? I’m looking to experiment with N/D for flavor and color. But I don’t want the gumminess that higher percentages of diastatic malt will produce.
Is there a way to test the malts for active enzymes? (Without baking a gummy loaf). :-)
Dan
Well, generally the darker the malt the less DP. How much DP is a problem will depend on your usage rate and other flours, eg American AP often has barley malt already added.
Crystal malt has no DP, because of the special way it is made as I touched upon above.
There are plenty of tables on the Net, giving DP of various malts. eg:
Click Here
Click Here
Click Here
Lance
Roasted barley is what it says it is - it is not malted.
Roasted barley is raw barley that has been roasted until it is a dark brown colour. It is used in beer brewing to impart a dark colour and roasted flavour to beers. In lesser quantities it can be used to give a red hue to beer.
The most notable beer brewed wih large quantities of roast barley is Guinness.
Lance
Thanks everyone. Perhaps I missed something on the youtube videos. They would wait till the barley or wheat seeds to germinate. Then roast them.
That is correct. If the grains are not sprouted, they are not malted.
Dan