Class is in session at Brooklyn Brewery at the CIA, our brewhouse and teaching facility at the Culinary Institute of America. Each month, we’ll take you inside the classroom to learn alongside the students participating in the most robust beer education of any culinary institute. You don’t have to do the homework, but you might want to do some extra reading.
The CIA beer lineup. Image: Al Nowak, On Location Studios
The Art and Science of Brewing students at the Culinary Institute of America have started to get their hands dirty in the brewhouse. As they wade into their required brewing hours, their class time is also focusing on the importance of understanding the ingredients behind the beer we love. One of the most intriguing (without ignoring the rest, of course), is malt.
Malt is a catch-all term given to the cereal grains used in brewing beer. Generally, brewers prefer to work with barley malt, as the grain has a simple structure and relatively low protein content that makes it very simple to ferment and tasty to drink. Over the years, countless other grains have been pressed into service. Some, like wheat, have retained their value over the years, while more obscure grains like millet or sorghum are harder to find.
But what exactly is malt, and how is it made? As I like to tell tour groups here at the Brooklyn Brewery, making malt is very similar to making toast, except it involves crushing the dreams of a seed. This introduction serves two purposes: it makes malt more accessible, and it lets the group know that I am perhaps slightly crazy, which is usually seen as endearing
An array of Weyermann malts. Click image for source site.
Malt production begins with a long drying period to prepare the grain, followed by several days of soaking it in water. Within the grain, it believes that it has been planted and watered, and the time has come for it to burst forth as the biggest, best plant you’ve ever seen. The grain’s internal structure will break down and rearrange into a complex matrix of carbohydrates intended to provide food for the young plant. Just as the plant sprouts– the night before it sets off to leave their crummy hometown, if you’re looking for an 80s movie parallel– it is instead air-dried and kilned.
Tragedy? Perhaps. But the grain, with that peppy, John Cusack-esque optimism we all know and love, makes the best of having its plant plans foiled. As it is kilned, the grain toasts. The longer the grain is exposed to the dry heat of the kiln, the more processes like the Maillard reaction come into play, introducing new flavors and aromas to our little friend. A short kilning time might produce something like pilsner malt: sweet, nutty, and not too complex. Longer, and we get into chocolate malt territory, with rich roast coffee and baker’s chocolate at the fore. Even longer, and black patent malt emerges, nearly bitter with roast and packed with dark color. Past that, and you may be accused of arson.
When malt arrives at the brewery, we are essentially presented with a capsule of carbohydrates. We mill the grain to gently crack the outer shell, then steep the malt in hot water during our mash. At roughly 155° Fahrenheit, enzymes within the malt activate once more, breaking down more of the complex carbohydrates within to become easily fermentable sugars. These sugars will go on to become the food our yeast needs to produce carbon dioxide and alcohol during the fermentation process and give our beer a point. Finally, the our grain friend is a success!
The brew kettle at The Brooklyn Brewery at the CIA. Image: Al Nowak, On Location Studios
Aside from fermentable sugars, malt contributes color, body, and flavor to the beer. One of the most common misconceptions in beer is that thicker, dark beers will always be big, burly brews guaranteed to ruin your following morning. Beers like Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro or our own Insulated Dark Lager illustrate a simple counterargument. Both are dark in color, but neither is particularly strong at 6% and 5.6%, respectively. Milk Stout Nitro gains its milkshake texture from both the nitrogen bubbles in the beer and non-fermentable sugars like lactose, which add to the body of the beer after the yeast passes them up. Insulated is a deceptively light beer, mostly thanks to the hardworking lager yeast that give it such a smooth finish.
Other specialty grains can contribute weird and wild characteristics to beer. Wheat beers are famously hazy due to suspended proteins that remain in solution, as wheat proteins are almost impossible to filter entirely (and happen to be quite tasty.) Rye adds a silky texture thanks to a similar protein structure, while adjuncts like malted corn or rice contribute almost no body since they are composed of much simpler sugars. Exploring the odd corners of malt is one of the most exciting parts of ordering new beers.
The CIA students are seeing this malt action up close. Mise en Place Wit is a characteristically hazy wheat beer. Cleaver IPA shows off the entrancing color of the medium-toast malts, while Cast Iron Stout takes you straight to black. While we love these beers already, we’re looking forward to seeing what else the students come up with in their time in the brewhouse.
Any questions? See us after class on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll answer any questions we can to further your beer knowledge.