A Dive Into Honey Malt
TroubleShooting
Stephen Elliott — Lawtell, Louisiana asks,
I am an extract brewer who recently started using honey malt to try to get some sweetness into some of my beers like English-style brown and amber ales. I notice the honey malt is in the specialty grain section of the online homebrew store where I buy my steeping grains. But some threads I’ve read said you should mash honey malt. I’m confused on whether this grain should be steeped or mashed? If I steep this grain, what will it yield versus if I mash it?
The rule of thumb when brewing with extracts is to steep crystal, caramel, and roasted specialty malts, and to mash specialty malts that contain starch. When crystal and caramel* malts are made, the malt starch is largely converted to fermentable sugars and dextrin in a step called stewing; this is basically mashing within the grain kernel. After the stewing step, crystal and caramel malts undergo kilning where the malt is dried and the color is increased according to the product specification.
Roasted malts, like melanoidin, amber, brown, chocolate, black barley, and roasted malt do not have a conversion step, but the higher level of kilning (compared to base malts) denatures enzymes and changes the nature of the starch by essentially charring it to different degrees.
Note that there is a progression in color associated with roasted malts where the lighter colored types do contain uncharred starch and the darkest types contain very little uncharred starch. This means that the rule of thumb about steeping is not absolute. Because most of these grains are used at relatively low levels, the steeping method works just fine.
But you asked about honey malt and I have not mentioned anything about honey malt. That’s because honey malt is pretty much its own thing. For over 25 years, the term honey malt was only used by Gambrinus Malting, based out of Armstrong, British Columbia. Gambrinus honey malt was developed as a brümalt in the early 1990s when very few brewers had heard of brümalt, let alone tasted a sample or brewed a beer with it, so they called their malt honey malt.
And for those all-grain brewers who are reading, one of the benefits to honey malt, aside from its interesting flavor and nice color, is its acidity; honey malt is a special type of acidulated malt . . .
Honey malt begins like other malts, but the fresh air supply is cut off midway through the germination process. This essentially suffocates the germinating barley kernels as carbon dioxide levels increase in the grain bed. Although this stops kernel growth and respiration, enzyme activity within the kernel continues and the growth of lactic acid bacteria is encouraged due to the carbon dioxide-rich environment within the grain bed. The result is malt kernels with relatively high levels of amino acids and reducing sugars from the continued action of barley enzymes and a rise in lactic acid because of the growth of lactic acid bacteria.
When this malt is kilned, the high concentrations of amino acids and reducing sugars lead to color and flavor development via the Maillard reaction cascade and the lactic acid from the growth of bacteria gives honey malt a nice snap. Unlike crystal, caramel, and roasted specialty malts, honey malt contains a relatively normal level of malt starch that is hydrolyzed when it is mashed with enzymatic base malts.
Like lightly roasted special malts, using up to about 10% honey as a steeped malt to supplement your extract recipe will work just fine, but if you want to go with a higher proportion of this malt type, mini-mashing is recommended. And for those all-grain brewers who are reading, one of the benefits to honey malt, aside from its interesting flavor and nice color, is its acidity; honey malt is a special type of acidulated malt that also reduces mash pH.
Your question about yield is interesting and is not one I recall covering in previous discussions about specialty malts. Yield is defined by how much extract, determined by measuring wort density, is transferred from carbohydrate source, such as malt, flaked adjuncts, malt extracts, and brewing sugars, to wort during the brewing process. The nature of the extract is irrelevant to yield because anything that is dissolved into wort from the carbohydrate source, including soluble proteins, increases wort density. This means that any grain that is steeped will contribute extract whether or not the extract is fermentable.
Yield does increase with mashing compared to steeping because malt enzymes convert some insoluble compounds into soluble compounds. This depends on the ingredient type, so providing a firm estimate about how much additional yield comes with mashing is hard to provide. Honey/brümalt is a different type of malt due to how it is germinated and contains a fairly high component of soluble solids, as can be seen by reviewing the soluble to total protein on a malt analysis (see below), despite its abbreviated germination. The coarse grind, as-is malt yield (typical brewery grist including moisture) is 76%, which is just a tad below typical base malts where this same metric is usually about 78%. This means that you should see similar steep yields compared to other lightly colored special malts.
I am definitely not knocking extract brewing, but if this whole discussion leaves you scratching your head about all-grain mashing you may want to give it a try. Infusion mashing is not much different than steeping. And if you use the brew-in-a-bag method you don’t require much gear, if anything, beyond what you already have (assuming you have a full-sized kettle).
* The terms crystal and caramel are often used synonymously and sometimes with an implication about roasting method. Crystal malts are almost always produced in a roasting drum, but the term caramel is used for malts dried on a conventional kiln as well as those dried in a roasting drum.
