Lesson 2 - Speciality Malt
This lesson deals with speciality malt. Speciality malt is any malted product other than standard pale barley malt. We explore how these malts are made. We discover how using speciality malts or malt extracts, provides different beer flavour, aroma and can also affect colour.
Preface
Imagine if the only malt that we had access to was pale malt, derived from barley. It would certainly reduce the variety of beers available to the consumer. Thankfully, maltsters use their skill and ingenuity to make products that provide us with a wide range of colours and flavours. Armed with these ingredients, we can produce a diversity of delicious beers.
For the most part, heat is the parameter that maltsters manipulate to produce speciality malt. If you remember the section on kilning (from the malt unit) during the production of pale malt, the main driver of heat-derived colour and flavour is non enzymatic browning, principally in the form of the Maillard reaction. This is central to the transformation of barley into speciality malt.