Rob; I just happened to be on here replying to another post concerning the term "Mechanical Floor Malting." Here's a good article written by Jeff Alworth on his visit to a Czech floor malthouse that produces Weyermann's Bohemian Floor Malted Pilsner:
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2017/5/4/inside-a-czech-floor-maltingsI'm not sure what their production volumes are. When you take into account that most of this malt is probably going to feed the adjoining brewery, and you think about whatever little is leftover to sell as BoPils floor malt, I scratch my head. The few British floor malthouses that are still operational are maintained for tourism and as a facade.
I'm going to throw some gasoline onto the fire here, but...the problem with "modern floor malt" is that there is no governing body or statute that regulates what percentage a product has to be to even be considered floor malt. 100%? 50%? 1?%?
If you read between the lines, I think brewers would be shocked that the "floor malt" they purchase isn't really floor-malted at all. Maybe that's why it's easy to say there's no flavor difference between floor malt and more commercial malt...it's all really the same stuff!
The safest best is to buy from malthouses that are completely transparent with their process and ingredients. A great example of a small maltster making exceptional, traditional floor malt is Admiral Maltings in Alameda, CA. There are a handful of other craft maltsters doing it right across North America. There IS a pronounced flavor difference.
As far as grain bed depth in our floor malter: we don't exceed 12" when fully germinated, which isn't much deeper than the 8" of more traditional floor malting.
During germ, we advance the grainbeds 10 feet every 60 minutes so that in the course of 6 hours, both sides of the machine are completely flipped multiple times to mimic the physical action of someone turning the bed with a shovel. The machine is 80 feet long, 20 feet wide, and the only one of it's kind in the world.
It's pretty simple if you think about it...if you can make every single kernel be the same product, you end up with a tremendous depth of flavor over blended malts. The only way to do this is by using shallow beds, semi-continuous movement, and very tight process controls. Our goal is to make an even more consistent and high quality malt than traditional floor maltings by using the best of modern technology...hence: "Mechanically Floor-Malted."
Topic: Mecca Grade and other floor malts (Read 2982 times)
