I just finished the second week of school, and as we were wrapping up our section on wort production, our class took a field trip to the Briess specialty malt facility in Wisconsin.  Malting, the basic process barley undergoes before we receive it at the brewery, consists of steeping, germination, and kilning.  Just like breweries, malting facilities each have different setups to meet their production needs. 

 The barley enters the facility via railcar and is transferred to the grain elevator room.  This room was a favorite of a lot of our class. It is an over-manufactured room completely constructed from thick slabs of timber, hand cut when the facility first opened.  As the grain enters the elevator room it is cleaned as it is sent onto a conveyor belt into the steeping vessel.  The goal of the steep is to increase the moisture content of the grain for respiration (the grain using its starch reserves for energy) during germination.  After about 2 days of steeping, the barley is moved to the first germination bed where modification begins.  The barley is slowly and constantly mixed to keep temperature, humidity, and oxygen exposure consistent throughout the grain bed.  Modification is the preliminary process before a barley kernel begins to grow into a plant, where enzymes are produced, cell walls are degraded, and certain proteins and starches begin to break down.  These factors help us brewers get as many sugars and yeast nutrients as possible for fermentation.  To make sure that we have the greatest extract, maltsters halt modification before the barley kernel begins to use these sugars and nutrients to grow into a plant.  Modification is halted through kilning or roasting.   The maltsters heat the barley kernels at different temperatures according to the flavors and colors they want the malt to produce in the beer.  This process takes a day or so after which it is cooled and packaged. 

Briess uses cylindrical drum roasters that tumble the barley at a slow rate so that the barley gets evenly roasted against the heated walls.  The end of roasting is determined through visual inspection of samples taken out (pictured).

Before they send out palates of malt, a sample is taken to the lab where different tests are performed to check the plumpness of the kernels, potential extract of the malt, color, and other information that is important for the brewer to know before brewing.  This information is available to brewers in a certificate of analysis. 

After the tour, our class had lunch and beers with a few of the maltsters during a power point presentation and Q&A session.  The staff was quite helpful with questions and it was enjoyable to see that these maltsters are as passionate about their product as craft brewers are about their beer.  Seasonal specialty malts are where these artists get to use their creativity to make new malt that really excites them.   And if the Briess staff hadn’t shown enough hospitality already by paying for our trip and lunch, on the way out they gave us pouches of malt balls made at there facility as well as two coolers of beer to add to the three already on our party bus.  Thanks Briess!