The Maltsters’ Association of Great Britain

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Malt Facts

UK Malting Industry

On this page we have tried to bring together various facts about malt which we hope you will find both interesting and useful…

As a rough guide:

1140 gallons of water are used to make 1 tonne of malt

1.3 tonne of barley makes 1 tonne of malt

1 tonne of malt makes 54 barrels of beer

1 barrel of beer = 163.65 litres

54 barrels = 8,837 litres

8,837 litres = 15,553 pints

50,000 litres of beer can be made from 1 hectare of malting barley

  • One tonne of barley at 12% moisture (the usual moisture content for barley in store, although at harvest the moisture may be anywhere from 13.5% to 18% depending on latitude and rainfall) will produce about 830kg of malted barley at 5% moisture, ready for delivery to a brewer.

 

  • Energy usage per tonne of malt – you can convert: 1t malt takes about 750KwH gas plus 150kWh electricity to produce in the maltings. Note that these energy inputs account for only about 35% of the carbon footprint of malt: 60% is embedded in the barley at the point of delivery to a maltings and arises principally from the energy used to produce nitrogen fertiliser and the emission from soil of nitrous oxide. There is also a contribution from tractor usage, agrochemicals, and drying of the crop.

 

  • In a normal malting cycle, around 4m3 water is used to make 1t malt. We have undertaken research to show that we could recycle most of this water, but customers are not yet convinced, and there would be additional energy input to the recycling process.

 

  • There is some benefit obtained from co-products – in the maltings, about 4% of the weight of the malt output is available as animal feed at a protein content of 18%, and from the brewery the spent grains are a useful source of energy for cattle.