The traditional malt house was largely phased out during the twentieth century in favour of more mechanised production.
Does ardbeg do floor maltings.
If your first proper distillery tour was one with floor maltings it can be a hard act to follow.
My first foray into islay whiskey came in the form of ardbeg 10 which i absolutely love.
Floor malting is the historic technique of preparing barley for fermentation.
A malt house malt barn or maltings is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth.
The malt is used in brewing beer whisky and in certain foods.
The distillery began production in december 2005 and was the first to be built on islay in 124 years.
Well laphroaig does some of its own floor maltings but this covers only a small percentage of the barley it needs i ve read 30 the rest comes from port ellen.
There have been no floor maltings at ardbeg since 1981 so all the malt that is used in production hails from the maltings in the village of port ellen.
Turning it into malted barley.
My next was lagavulin 16 also very nice though i prefer the ardbeg if im being honest.
It is one of six scottish distilleries still working with traditional floor maltings and.
While on the floor the germinating grain must be turned by hand twice a day 7 days a week to keep it properly oxygenated to dissipate heat and to keep rootlets from tangling the malt into an unmanageable mat.
Interior view of malting floor.
Ardbeg uses the most phenolic malt in the business i e.
Seeing the sea of grain on the floor the smouldering bricks of peat in the kiln and the blue smoke wafting from the pagoda roof it all seemed wonderfully artisan and self contained.
Mine was bowmore where i was taken around by the then manager jim mcewan.
The malt is peated to a level of 50ppm.
Although the production of barley malt always includes steeping germination and drying two different production methods have emerged.
The traditional tools for this hard labor are a wooden malt.
Most of the 100 distilleries in scotland purchase malted barley from commercial malting.
There have been no floor maltings at ardbeg since 1977 so all the malt that is used in the production of ardbeg comes from the maltings in port ellen.
Once the malt arrives at the distillery it is stored in malt bins for a few days before being crushed into a substance called grist in a malt mill.
The distillery uses barley grown on site at rockside farm and malted at the distillery as well as malt from the port ellen maltings and releases separate bottlings depending on the source of the grain.
As i mentioned in a post about my visit to laphraoig only a few scotch whisky distilleries do their own malting.
Today the bulk of the malt used in whisky production is produced in drum maltings according to exact specifications of the distilleries what you read here is a look into the past.
