Randy Mosher joins me this week to discuss the wide variety of processes and flavors developed while kilning and roasting malt. This includes the Maillard reaction, carmelization and Pyrolisis.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (49:30)
- This week I welcome back Randy Mosher. Randy is the author of the books Mastering Homebrew, Radical Brewing, and Tasting Beer. (Full disclosure: Amazon affiliate links to books) He’s also partner in two breweries near Chicago Five Rabbit and Forbidden Root.
- Randy briefly discusses his two breweries and the new book on tasting he is working on.
- He introduces today’s topic which is the important flavors developed during three major processes that occur during malting: Carmelization, the Maillard reaction and Pyrolysis
- We start with a bit on carmelization which is a process that mainly takes place in Crystal/Caramel malts which have a high percentage of simple sugars.
- Next we discuss the Maillard reaction which is a dominant process in cooked foods as well as kilned malts.
- We talk about some of the flavors generated and how they pile up on each other to create complex flavors in the beer.
- Randy introduces pyrolysis which as the name implies is essentially a burning process that takes place during roasting at high temperature. Pyrolysis produces many of the roast flavors we associate with very dark malts.
- We talk a bit about the compounds produced as well as the flavors from each.
- Randy explains why roast barley (stout roast) is a different type of malt as it is made from unmalted barley.
- We discuss the harsh zone, which is a region between roughly 70 and 200L where very few malts are produced due to the harsh flavors in this region.
- Randy explains where astringency in very dark malts comes from.
- He gives us his closing thoughts.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
- And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
- Also check out BeerSmith, BeerSmith Web, BeerSmith Mobile software and the new DVDs John Palmer and I filmed – How to Brew with Malt Extract and How to Brew All Grain are available now. You can subscribe to the BeerSmith newsletter for free to get some great articles on home brewing.
Thanks to Randy Mosher for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
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