Ep. 201 - Water Chemistry and Malt Production

This is a malt centric episode at the intersection of brewer curiosity. In a moment I’ll be talking with Chris Cates of Little Animals Brewing, Brent Manning of Riverbend Malt House, and Andrew Zinn of Leveller Brewing.

A year ago, Cates visited Belgium and came back inspired. After visiting through some of the worlds best breweries, drinking classic and carefully crafted saison, he wanted to make a beer that not only paid homage to those beers but to also impart a sense of place from Eastern Tennessee.

After trying a few recipes that didn’t yield the results he wanted, Cates reached out to Riverbend Malt House in neighboring North Carolina to help him create a pilsner malt that would mimic those from Belgium.

The idea, he said was to a local malt “tailored for diastatic and mixed fermentations, with higher protein and beta-glucans and built in minerality and buffering capacity.”

Riverbend achieved this by creating a water profile that was rich in minerals that was used during the malting process. Manning of Riverbend says the results yielded a malt that resists ph drop slightly better than usual, and allows for additional laxtic acid and potential ester precursors.

We’ll weave the whole story from start to finisih as Cates and Manning join the show with Andrew Zinn of Leveller Brewing, who has also been brewing with the malt.

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For more Drink Beer, Think Beer check out All About Beer.

• Host: John Holl
• Guests: Chris Cates, Andrew Zinn, Brent Manning
• Sponsors: Shopify, All About Beer
• Tags: Beer, Malt, Belgium, Water, Science, Pilsner, Saison, Tennessee, North Carolina