Brewing and Flavoring with Malt

Brewing and Flavoring with Malt
Brewing
For brewing, the whole malt is ground and cooked with water and frequently other cereal adjuncts in a process known as mashing. The products of this are wort, the distinctively flavored dilute extract in which the complex carbohydrates of the cereal mash have been enzymatically converted to fermentable sugars, the wort is boiled to sterilized it; hops and yeast are added; and the mixture is fermented to make beer.

Flavoring with Malt
Apart from its function in brewing beer, malt is a desirable flavor in other food products, with or without the enzyme activity. Barley malt can be milled to separate the hulls and provide a meal or flour products for use in dry formulation, or it can be extracted with water (as in mashing) and the resulting extract concentrated to a syrup or dehydrated to a powder for use in flavor formulations. In formulating with any of these preparations, care must be taken to specify whether the desired product is one that retains its enzyme activity – i.e., is “diastatic” – or does not retain enzyme activity (nondiastic). Diastase was the original name for malt amylase, in use before it was known to consist of both alpha and beta amylase. Nondiastatic products are usually used for flavoring breakfast cereal, as otherwise an unwelcome liquefaction of the starchy components of a formula may occur.

Malt syrup is normally a brown viscous liquid with poor flow properties that is typically diluted with water before being added to the grain. It is available in degree of color and flavor concentration and results in an attractive light brown color developing in cereals during cooking, However, the use of too much in a formula may result in bitterness in the finished product.
Brewing and Flavoring with Malt