2 Beginner Questions

[Mainer28]

1) What are aromatic malts and how do they differ from Vienna, Munich and caramel malts?

2) What does malt literature mean when they reference malts containing or not containing enzymes?

Thanks all for your help. These two questions I am stumped on.

Regards,

mac

 

[Edcculus]

1- from what I've read/seen Aromatic malt is a specific type of malt, not a class of malts. It is kilned higher, so you wouldn't use it as a significant percentage of your grist like you would with Vienna or Munich.

2 - The more a malt is kilned, the less enzymes it contains. Generally, light malts like basic 2 row, British Pale Ale, and Pilsner malt have a lot of enzymes. They have enough to convert themselves, and the rest of the grist. Malts like Vienna or Munich only have enough to convert themsleves. That means if you have other character malts in the grist, you won't get good conversion. In addition, grains like unmalted wheat, corn and rice contain no enzymes. Neither do roasted grains like Chocolate and Roast Barley (at least not an appreciable amount)

Hope this helps.

 

[JLem]

2) The enzymes convert the starch present in the barley into sugars - basically, they chop up starches and other large carbohydrates into small, simpler sugars. These sugars are what the yeast "turn into" alcohol and CO2. Enzymes are destroyed at high temps, so the darker malts have less, if any, enzymes - so they cannot convert any starches into sugars. Base malts have plenty of enzymes - enough to convert their own starches plus a bunch more (like those from specialty grains).

No enzymes = no sugars = no alcohol =

 

[Mainer28]

Ah, thank you very much for the clarification on this.