Gladfield Chit Malt is here!

The term chit in malting represents the first stage of germination, where the barley has taken up enough moisture from steeping to start the magic process of turning starch into soluble sugars to feed the yeast during fermentation. Chit malt has a particularly high level of inherent starter enzymes, which contribute significantly to improving the conversion of starch, thus increasing the yield. The reason that the Chit Malt can improve body and foam is due to the process of modification of the starches in the grain by the enzymes still in the early stages when we start kilning this malt. It will leave long protein chains in the malt that the yeast won’t be able to digest its entirely during fermentation.

Gladfield Chit malt is a good alternative for raw adjuncts. The flavour impact in a beer is minimum with subtle green, grassy raw grain flavour. As Chit malts contain mostly high-molecular proteins and sugars and thus retain many of the green, grassy characteristics of raw grain. One of its main purposes is to improve the finished beer’s body and foam stability.

Chit malt is usually only lightly kilned and thus pale; only rarely is it roasted like color malts.  Because chit malt is modified just enough to be technically called “malt,” it can serve, in essence, as a legal functional substitute for unmalted or roasted barley, which are important elements in the grist composition of many Belgian and British beer styles.

A great malt to achieve superior foam stability. In our opinion a must malt to use in Sour beers, Saisons, Hazy beers and Low alcohol beers.

The higher enzymatic activity in Chit Malt can also increase mash efficiency and starch conversion rates when paired with these cheaper, unmodified cereal grains.