Malt confusion

[Ned Lud]

I have been reading about malt on the WWW and I am more confused now than when I started. If barley is barley, and malted barley is barley that has had its starch converted to malt(ose) in a malting house, why is it necessary to mash pale malt? Why can’t it just be steeped like crystal malt? Surely, if it needs mashing to convert the starch into sugar (maltose), then it was barley in the first place and not malted barley. Also, if speciality grains such as crystal malt contain low concentrations of fermentable sugars, are there any malts available that contain high concentrations of fermentable sugars that just require steeping and no mashing?

Ned

 

[tubby_shaw]

In a nutshell malting is controlled germination, malting simply begins the whole beer making process by getting the grain to a point where the enzymes that are normally used to create energy to grow roots and shoots are available to us to use to turn the stored starches in the grain to sugars :party: Once this point is reached the malt is then dried (kilned) to stop the process :)
For crystal malt, the wet malt is heated to mashing temperature and the mashing process occurs within the grain husk, it is then kilned leaving the sugars inside the husk :thumb:

 

[Ned Lud]

Thanks for clearing that up tubby. I've just read your earlier thread on crystal malt, which answers the specialist malt part of my question nicely :thumb:.

Ned