Sunday 17 July 2022

1953 DDR Overview of malt types

As threatened, here's a look at another DDR standard, TGL 6841:1 from 1953. It's for malt.

There were just seven types of malt specified. And one of those is wheat malt.

The only real surprise was seeing Brüh-Malz. Which I'm pretty sure is the same thing as "broeimout", which you may remember from various old Heineken recipes. A quick poke around on the internet indicated that it is still produced and is sometimes called honey malt in English.

"Honey malt is the best description for European malt known as ‘Brühmalz’. Its intense malty sweetness makes it perfect for any specialty beer. This highly versatile, multifaceted malt brings flavors of honey, bread crust, toast, pretzel, grain, and a hint of tartness. Great for adding depth and complexity to the malt profiles of styles like Märzen/Festbier, Bock, Dunkel, Altbier, Scottish ale, brown ale or mild ale, pale ale, and many more."
https://bsgcraftbrewing.com/gambrinus-honey-malt/

The rest are pretty much the base set of German-style malts. I'm guessing that Farb-Malz was mainly used in Porter. Probably not in Schwarzbier, though, as that didn't have a roasty flavour.

This list of malts will come in dead handy for anyone wanting to brew beers according to TGL 7764. Because these are the only malts allowed. They should be plenty, though, shouldn't they?

1953 DDR Overview of malt types
Type of malt  Commercial designation  Description
WZ  Wheat Malt  Pale malt made from wheat
KM Kara-Münch Malt made from malting barley, which is subject to a special malting process.
KP Kara-Pils 
F
Farb-Malz Malt made from malting barley that is subject to a special roasting process.
B  Brüh malt Dark malt made from malting barley
M  Munich Malt
P  Pilsner malt Palemalt made from malting barley
WN  Vienna Malt
Source:
1953 TGL 6841:1 page 1.

 Next time we'll be looking at these malt types in more detail.

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brühmalz is the same as "Melanodin malt" and is still produced and sold under that name by e.g. Weyermann. The main difference to other malts is a "choking" stage at the end of malting, before kilning, where the kernels stops sprouting due to lack of oxygen and increased temperature. Enzymes are still active, which releases a lot of breakdown products like sugars and free amino acids. During the kilning phase these later form high levels of "melanoidins", which gives both red colour and a very rich and special flavour. This approach is very different from crystal/caramel malts where the emphasis is on releasing only sugars during the initial prolonged "wet" phase of kilning (and very little amino acids), resulting in mostly "caramelization" during the dryer and hotter kilning phase.

Sources: Technology brewing and malting, Wolfgang Kunze

Christoph Riedel said...

Hi Ron,

I believe Melanoidin Malt would be the nowadays German equivalent, which is made in the same way the American Honey Malt, but with a focus on bready aromas instead of sweet honey.

J-W Maessen said...

It's also worth noting that melanoidin malt is a common addition to recipes that used to be decocted and are being infusion mashed (or step mashed) now instead.