Weyermann De-Husked Roast Malt

Weyermann De-Husked Roasted Malt provides chocolate and toasted flavors without the tannins and astringent flavors common in regular chocolate malt. If you’re looking to buy Weyermann De-Husked Roasted Malts for your next batch of beer you can pick them up at The Hoppy Brewer in Gresham. Learn more about Weyermann De-Husked, Roasted Malts below.

A vast number of brewers, not just homebrewers, haven’t even heard of the stuff so don’t feel bad if you are in that number. Originally coming from Germany, this malt is used the world over. But how is debittered black malt different from “regular” black malt you ask? Debittered black malt has some unusual characteristics that black malt doesn’t possess. Actually, it not so much possesses different characteristics as lacks them.

A good part of the character of the roasted grain is supplied by the husk. Specifically, the husk is what provides nearly all the astringency and bitterness, and when it is darkly roasted, this character increases many times. Black malt has a lot of uses in brewing. (For examples, read my November 2007 BYO article on this malt.) However, there are a lot of beers out there that can use some tasty dark character without the drying bitterness that comes with most darkly-roasted malts. So how would we get the dark character we do want without the bits we don’t want? The easiest way is to use a malt from which that husk has been removed (or reduced) from the barley. In debittered black malt, the husk has been worn down substantially prior to kilning.

Weyermann Specialty Malting Company of Bamberg probably sells more debittered black malt than anyone else on the planet. Their labels, Carafa® Special I, II and III, have color ratings around 320 °L, 400 °L and 525 °L respectively. The flavors of Carafa® Special I , II and II go from chocolate to black malt as you increase from more lightly to more darkly roasted. Weyermann also sells “plain” (husked) versions of these malts, which they call Carafa® I, II and III (no “Special”).

All Carafa® malts are made from German-grown 2-row spring barley and Weyermann describes the process of dehusking as akin to rice polishing — making brown rice into white rice — as the grain is worn down from the outside in. They do make a note of leaving about 40% of the husk intact. After much experience and research, it was found that leaving any less husk would allow the kernel to be damaged during kilning.

Visit The Hoppy Brewer in Gresham to browse our selection of grains including our Weyermann De-Husked Roast Malt.

SRC: Learn details about Roasted Debittered Malt at: https://byo.com/bock/item/1671-debittered-black-malt