Wow! I had no idea how much I didn't know about barley. And even more so, I had no idea how hard it would be to find barley in Central Florida.
So let's take a half step backwards, and perhaps a little to the aside. Why exactly am I obsessing over barley?
Easy, The sole ingredient of Irish and Scotch whiskies is malt, and malt is made from barley. Duh! I had no idea. And actually, fundamental difference between Irish Whiskey and Scotch Whiskey is how the malt is made. Irish whiskey distilleries bake the malt in kilns. Scotch is made from malt that is dried in hot smoke from a peat fire. It is this use of this smoke that gives Scotch its distinctive peaty flavor. So Irish whiskey and Scotch really are all about malt, and therefore (by extension) barley.
Malt is made by germinating barley until the small primary root is about the same length as the kernel of barley. The germination is then stopped by heating the malt. After the malt is dried, it is soaked in a mash tun to create the sugar water that is fermented to distill. This sugar water is called wort. Simple, ja?
Not knowing anything about barley and little about fermentation, I rather assumed the barley was malted simply to make it more flavorful. Nicht so sehr. As it so happens, the starches in barley do not convert to soluble sugars without an enzyme that is released by the barley as the seed is germinated. Interestingly, I found that even when barley is used as animal feed, it is not particularly good for the livestock unless a percentage of the barley is sprouted, or the enzyme is otherwise added to the feed. So the wort can only be created from malted barley.
As I looked into malt even more, I found that malt is not simply malt. Instead, there are many types of malt, categorized by how darkly it has been roasted. You see, once the barley has been malted and malting has been halted, the malt can by roasted in a hot oven to caramelize the sugars within the malt. The hotter and longer the malt is roasted, the more caramelizing that occurs.
Malt is graded by not only how it is dried or roasted, but also by the darkness of the roasted malt using a scale called the Degrees Lovibond Scale, or simply the L Scale. It measures the color of the roasted barley from a light amber color (0) to black (560). A comprehensive list can be found at http://www.hogtownbrewers.org/brewschooldocs/malt-chart.pdf.
Since we are looking for sugar to ferment more than flavor, a basic malt such as a pilsner works fine. But tossing in a little darker roasts for the fun of it can't be all bad.
So, as I figure it, the very first step in making a fine whiskey in the traditions of Ireland and Scotland is to make a good malt. While numerous malts are available through home brew supply stores, what fun is there in that?
