malt powder or sprouted flour
In the mood for tinkering, I made some diastatic (I think) malt powder from wheat berries just to see if the process is as simple as everyone says it is (it is). But as I was grinding it the question arose – did I make malt powder or sprouted wheat flour? It's probably a silly question but it's driving me nuts.
Looking at how-to’s for both it seems like they are essentially the same thing. Is it only malt powder if you use barley or rye? I haven’t had a chance to bake with it yet, but once I do it would be handy to know what to call it.
Oh, and the “diastatic (I think)” is because I don’t know exactly how hot my dehydrator gets. The bottom tray seemed pretty hot. Maybe it’s semi-diastatic. Should be fun to experiment with either way!
Marcus
Diastatic Malt Powder is from sprouted grain (like wheat berries).
The difference between sprouted flour and malt powder is how long you sprout it.
For flour, you only want the sprout to just pop out of the bran. For malt powder, you want it to sprout the length of the grain itself, which is too far for flour.
While malt powder looks like flour, you would use only a small amount of it in your recipe. As for sprouted flour, you can replace other flour with it, such as white or whole wheat, one for one.
Rick
Aha! Thank you for the explanation. I new I had to be missing something. I caught the sprouts fairly early, so I think what I made probably belongs in the flour category. That can go in the next bake. In the meantime I'll get some more sprouts going. Thanks again.
Marcus
Great question and answer! I always learn new things here.
Yeah, my baking would probably be a lot less adventurous without this site.
making both white and red malts. If you just chit the berries where the rootlets just poke through the seed shell, dry and grind them you have sprouted flour. That takes about a day for rye and maybe 1 day and half for wheat. If you let the sprouting process go for 4-5 days until the sprout is the length of the seed (not the 3 rootlets that are thinner and will be 3 times the length of the seed) dry them at less than 130 F then grind you have diastatic malt powder.
Happy baking Marcus
Perfect photos! I read through a few of your old posts on the subject (very helpful, by the way) but somehow the root-length distinction went right by me. I think it was a case of over-research to the point where the various methods all sort of melded into one in my head and all subtlety was lost (not the first time this has happened). I'm feeling much more sprout-capable now. Thank you!