Malt: A Practical Guide from Field to Brewhouse (Brewing Elements)

Very informative book. Well worth the money.

Fourth in the Brewing Elements series this treatise brings to a close the discussion of the quad of essential elements needed for brewing beer: Water, Hops, Yeast and Malt. Starting with an intriguing adventure story Mallett brings the craft of a writer (despite the fact that this is his first book) to what could have been a very dry topic; he extracts (pun very much intended) the essentials of a vast topic in an admirable way. Knowing John Mallett I expected nothing less and the only faults – not his - were a good few grammatical and minor case errors and spellings (where was his copy editor on these?); this chaff aside let us roll the malting drum to see what has been achieved here.The plot begins then with the adventure, a mystery to be solved which piece by piece is then unraveled as Mallett learns and then teaches us about the entire topic of barley and its subsequent almost alchemical transformation into brewers gold – or I should say crystal/caramel, chocolate and black patent malt and more.I will claim that this is a middle-level text for readers (leading to an understanding of more technical works as published by scientific bodies and brewing organizations). Home-brewers I think will be a little disappointed that there were not more examples to chew on for grist formulations and the like. However, all serious technical brewers will benefit from Mallett bringing aboard several well respected brewing luminaries to discuss the best choices for malt selection for grist formulations (Brynildson, Carey, Cutler, Talley, Wambles and Wamby).Following on from a history of malting the volume then covers all aspects of the processes (home malting included) involved in the generation of base and specialty malts and includes complete malt family descriptions. Malt chemistry, as touted on the back plate of the book could (for me) have been covered a little more extensively as could malt quality and analysis including more on the sensory evaluation of malt – aroma and flavor. Nevertheless, Mallett has provided all the essentials within the space provided (full sets of references included) and at a suitable technical level to reach a broad audience that should lead the brewer and interested reader to start their own journey of discovery (a clear wish of the author).Barley varieties receive an important coverage and seed biochemistry and barley growth is considered. Milling – arguably recognized as the most important step to quality beer production – when using the finest quality malts and adjuncts rounds out the volume along with a key list of available malts and an introduction to the current new breed of craft-maltsters.The entire volume puts malt in its rightful position and how we all need to know that’s its parent source – the barley is agriculturally almost an endangered species with action needed as promoted by consumer understanding as well as that of the brewer. A thorough read of this book will enlighten many and will reduce the number of misgivings and misunderstandings of brewers towards the maltster and to a reduction of blame at the malt level when things go wrong in the brew-house and when poor flavor reception is noted by the consumer. I also believe it will leave an impression on brewers who insist on extreme hopping yet which can leave us with beers that are a little “rough around the edges”. A better understanding of malt usage might just round out those rough edges and produce some more truly superb beers – beers with soul (again read those sections by award winning brewers here).Thank you John Mallett for this wonderful volume. It is a much needed entry to and into the brewing literature and in my concluding opinion is the best in the series for its all-around coverage and importance to quality beer production.[A note to the other reviewers here so far on Amazon. This book has covered all it intended and as implied from the title. Its an entry level book and intended mainly for brewers. Craft malting is in its infancy and I am not sure this volume should have covered much on how to set up a malting operation. You need to look to other works and more technical works that Mallett I assume decided not to include here based on the intended audience and readership level of expertise. The references included will set you off on your own personal journey if that's where you are headed.]

This is part of a series. I very highly recommend buying all 3 books. This is more like a college level reading textbook. The depth of knowledge each of these 3 books have is just incredible. The water book is the first one I read. After one chapter I said holy cow this is some serious stuff.

I spent my last weekend reading and re-reading this book, learning a great deal of information about malts to a significant extent. I have no doubt that this book will stay with me for a very long time as I continue to learn. What all is missing is an Appendix containing an expanded rundown of base malts and specialty malts. Sure, Maris Otter is a thing, but what of the many companies that produce their own version of Maris Otter? I wish more detail was available along these lines. At the very least, now I can look at these maltster websites, download the specsheets for their grains and make better sense of what I'm reading and figure it out for myself.

I was delighted to read the complete book, very well written by John, and going from good overviews to the deep details about barley and malting. Very easy to see the passion of John on this important element of our beers! I learned a lot and recommend all brewers to read it!

If your just getting into all grain brewing i think this would be a great starting point. Most likely you can find filtered water to use, have a fresh yeast pack available, have a general idea of your desired bitterness, but when choosing malt it can get pretty confusing at first. Reading this book while having some local craft beer, you can usually just ask the bartender at the brewery what malts where used in the beer your drinking. Read up on how those malts are made and what flavors and characteristics those malts are contributing to the beer. This book paired with any good how to brew book will start you off fairly fast. Pretty soon you will be giving up storage space for more fermentation space.

Everything -- everything -- a home brewer needs to know about malted barley, from sources, the malting process, characteristics of a variety of malts, and some technical information about the biochemistry of malting. Good for anyone who brews or is planning on starting. Other volumes in this series cover water, yeast and hops. If you acquire all four you have at your fingertips all the knowledge you need to make good beer.

This book serves as evidence that John Mallett is not just a pretty face. John gently but firmly guides the reader through the malting process like the seasoned barley escort that he is. I was swept along by his firm and forceful prose into the uncontrollable throes of knowledge. Is he a dreamboat? Hell yes! But can he write about malt? Icing on the sweet sweet cake.

Bom livro para aperfeiçoar os conhecimentos sobre malte.

The media could not be loaded. Lets see what I learn from it

Excelente guía

Después de una semana con el libro y recién empezando a leerlo, las primeras páginas se han ido despegando del lomo. El encuadernado es terrible, no creo que pueda acabarlo sin tener que recoger las páginas s del suelo!!

ottimo libro fatto molto bene!