The Ins and Outs of Malt

Everyone knows what malt is, or at least they think they do. But most people don't ever look at malted grains in all their variations. Here's a breakdown of the variations that are at the disposal of whisky makers.

What is malting and why is it done?

Malting is a process whereby the grain is soaked so that it partly germinates, and then kilned and roasted, before being milled and added to a mashbill. Any grain can undergo the malting process, protein malts are the best at converting starches into fermentable sugars and then to alcohol to create the “beer” that will be distilled into whisky. For that reason, barley is by far the most commonly used malting choice for whisky makers, hence why the word “malt” in whisky parlance generally refers to malted barley.

Different Malted Barley Types

Within the malted barley space, there are different types, including base, specialty, caramel, and roasted. Base malts are the most commonly used, as they’re widely available and easy to work with. Generally, base malts are lower-protein pale malts made from two- or six-row barley that go through the standard malting process and result in the highest yields. But higher-protein malts are a preferred option these days, even if that ultimately means less whisky coming off the still.

“A barley with more protein will give you more precursors, meaning higher alcohols, esters, and aldehydes, so as it malts, it will then develop more flavor through fermentation, and ultimately drive the flavor of the whiskey,” says Todd Leopold, co-owner and distiller at Leopold Bros. in Denver, Colorado. “Up until recently, malt has been one of two things: pale or peated. But they're being taken in a new and interesting direction, especially when it comes to malt whisky.”

That brings us to malt types that can add more oomph to whisky. FEW Spirits founder and distiller Paul Hletko usually starts with a base of pale malts, but then he likes to pump the mash up with a sprinkle of something more exotic. “One of the joys of working with malt is the sheer variety you have at your fingertips,” says Hletko.

Chocolate Malt

When Hletko first experimented with chocolate malt—which is roasted two-row barley malt that’s kiln-dried at high temperatures for shorter periods of time—he blended around 10% of it into a whiskey and found that the resulting flavor was thrown way out of balance. “Chocolate malt is exceedingly difficult to work with,” he says. “It expresses so strongly in the distillate that if you’re not careful, you may not get what you’re looking for.” He eventually landed on using around 2%, which yields flavors of cacao and semi-sweet chocolate, plus rich espresso and coffee notes, and imbues the resulting whiskey with dark hues. Other less common malts that Hletko has discovered an infinity for include pilsner malt—“it’s vaguely vegetal, herbaceous, and has some cardamom to it”—and smoked malts, chief among them those that are smoked with mesquite and cherrywood, not peat.

Smoked and Peated Malts

When it comes to peated whisky, Ardbeg has found ways to keep peat fresh and exciting. “When we produced Ardcore, it was made using black malt [malt roasted at an even higher temperature than chocolate malt],” explains distillery manager Colin Gordon. “We mashed this with lower-phenol malt, instead of the typical heavily peated malt, to ensure that the character from the black malt came through in the whisky,” giving it those dark, roasty notes of coffee and chocolate. Aside from Ardcore, the distillery has also used lower or unpeated malts with its Kildalton bottling, as well as heavily peated malt (Hypernova).

Crystal Malt

Alex Chasko, head distiller at Teeling Whiskey in Ireland, has worked with peated malts for Teeling releases, but his go-to is crystal malt, a type of caramel malt [malt that’s steeped before being kilned and roasted at high temperatures] that delivers big flavor. “Crystal malt is a core component of our single malt—around 15%-20% of our single malt comes from crystal malt,” he says, adding that the distillery will release a single malt entirely comprised of crystal malt. “These malts are going to bring more unfermentable sugars, which will give you more caramel flavors and coffee richness in the spirit,” he explains. “What’s also a surprise is how crystal malt changes the yeast, and the yeast fermentation characteristics. So you can use the same yeast, but you’ll often get a different fruitiness with crystal malts than you would with your run-of-the-mill two-row ale malts.” Once crystal malts are steeped and germinated, they undergo an additional moist heating procedure, before being roasted at very high temperatures, which produces even darker color and more burnt sugar flavors.

Westland’s Malt Pursuit

While the malting and drying processes are clearly important, the grain itself can also dictate flavor. At Westland Distillery in Seattle, experimentation with many different malt types is underway as it moves away from the mass-market grain system (where base malts reign supreme). “We’ve worked with 30 malts to date,” says distillery manager Tyler Pederson. “A lot of them are genetic cousins, so your degrees of difference are fairly small, and that’s why we’re looking to consider more heritage and vintage grains that have been forgotten—we expect there will be far greater variance there.” Westland has partnered with Washington State University’s Breadlab to research, develop, and advocate for grain varietals that will not just have flavor divergences, but will be sustainable and climate resilient as well.

Investing In Malts

No matter the malt, plenty of flavor is derived from this grain component, and there’s far more to it than meets the eye. For that reason, more distillers (especially at the craft level) are investing in malts more thoughtfully. For some, that means going as far as building their own malting floors, a practice that was once prolific in Scotland but has since fallen by the wayside in favor of leaving the process to major malting companies. Among the newer distilleries with malting floors today are Hillrock Estate Distillery in New York’s Hudson Valley and Leopold Bros., which started floor malting in 2015 and just three years ago completed construction on an updated malting facility,