An entry · Work · Life
Maltster
Barley wakes up, and a maltster decides by touch and by smell exactly when to stop it.
Why the human is the point
Before any brewer or distiller touches it, barley has to be persuaded to germinate and then stopped at precisely the right moment. That is malting. On a traditional floor maltings the grain is steeped, spread across a stone floor and turned by hand with a wooden shovel, day and night, so it never overheats or knits itself together. The maltster reads the bed by feel: its warmth underfoot, the smell rising off it, the length of the shoot inside a chewed grain. Then the kiln, and everything is fixed for good. Most malt now comes out of large drum plants, and skilled maltsters run those too, but the floor maltings survive because some brewers can taste the difference. It is the least visible link in the whole chain and quietly the one that decides most of the flavour in your glass.
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