Hello, Beautiful: How Malt Makes Head-turning Craft Beers

Malt is simply grain that has been prepared for use in the brewing process

Out of the four main ingredients in beer, malt is often overlooked since it's not as game changing as hops, fascinating as yeast, nor essential in every stage of brewing as water.?

Yet the modest malt is the backbone of a great beer. It provides color, flavor, and most importantly the enzymes that convert starch into sugar for the yeast to turn into alcohol or what's known as fermentation

Malted barley is used in almost every beer, so much so that the term "malt" is actually shorthand for it. A high level of enzymes is one of the main reasons brewers choose barley.?

Let's step back a bit and focus our lenses on the color and flavor of malt.??

Imagine yourself in a vast grain field where rows of pale tan to yellowish spindle-shaped barley are swaying in the wind. If that doesn't work, find a cereal box from your kitchen. At the prime of their lives, barley is harvested from the field to begin the malting process.?

In the several stages of the malting process, drying and kilning (applying heat) on the barley yield differing amounts of color and flavor. The maltster's job is to adjust the moisture and temperature of the kilning vessel to achieve the desired malt appearance and taste.

A lightly kilned malt, for example, may come out as an ingredient for a brilliant, golden Pilsner beer. Meanwhile, roasted specialty malts can give a darker, more complex character to other beer styles like an Imperial Stout.?

That covers some basics about malt, but other grains can also be used in brewing such as un-malted wheat, rye, corn, rice, and sugar. They bring a new world of flavors, texture, and mouthfeel to a beer (or lack thereof).??

Most American and International Lagers have corn or rice in addition to barley, which takes up almost half of their total malt. These adjuncts will lighten the color of the beers and significantly lower their flavors

At Engkanto Brewery, we use high-quality raw materials such as imported malt to ensure the finest aromas and flavors of our craft beers come out. The selection of malt is done by our renowned Brewmaster based on his recipe. From there on, our brewing team mills the malt at the brewery for higher precision and greater yield, which kicks off the brewhouse operations