Malt trouble, too!

[gitchegumee]

Not just hops, but malt is in short supply this year too. I'm working for a new startup in India. Not many maltsters in this country yet. Looking for great English-style malts. Golden Promise and some well made specialties. Some have told us that they are at capacity this year and would rather not supply a new brewery. Anybody have some suggestions for me? As always, thanks in advance.

[jherrington]

A Chinese malt supplier that I buy from has some decent malt. Biggest problem is figuring out what the malt is. I translated a malt they sold as Vienna malt, it was definitely not a Vienna malt but it was a good malt. They also have 2 row which was imported from Australia and malted in China. I've been making beers with their malts for years now.

http://www.shuangmai.com/

http://www.shuangmai.com/e/

[gitchegumee]

Thanks for the tip. Chinese malt, eh? Might just try it. Hope they don't boost the protein levels with melamine! Still like to get some A-list malt.

[Fred Scheer]

Hi Philip

Did you talked to the Weyermanns in Bamberg, Germany about your requiremnets?

Cheers

Fred

[dick murton]

I suggest you try any of the Australian, Kiwi or European suppliers. A few years ago I had a spellout in India, and the local malt was extremely variable due to the number of small farmers who supply barley, extremely variabl growing conditions, extremely variable watering / use of fertilisers / grain varieties, which tended to be maintained within families, not widely sourced from commercially available seed, I know V J Mallya was trying to introduce a standardised variety for the UB breweries, but am not sure how far he got. We had dreadful problems with consistent conversion, not all to do with the malt, but this didn't help. And finally of course, UB and the rest of the big boys are producing lagers, so the malsters are not interested in tiny quantities of weird malt. They use to have enough trouble malting for lagers - but perhaps things have changed since then.

Where is "your" brewery ?

Cheers

[gitchegumee]

Thanks Fred! Weyermann indeed does supply India, however they won't have all the malt that I require for making full range of my beers. Thinking English maltsters here. Dick, I remember quite a few years ago you being involved in India. Gave me a heads-up. Anyway, this is in Bangalore. Should be a blast!

[Eric Brewer]

Does that mean you're no longer in Palau?


You know I was hoping to crash at the brewery and go diving every day for two weeks....

[gitchegumee]

I'm still "in" Palau. I'll be commuting for a while. But over the course of the next year, phasing myself more out than in. And by all means, come out! Diving is spectacular. Cheers!

[gitchegumee]

Trying to buy malt from Cargill. Having a hard time getting a response. Please get in touch with me for details. Thanks!

[dfalken]

Had similar experience with them. Finally got a response but the woman that has been handling me is not the most helpful. I have to ask the same question about 10 times to finally get an answer...she just seems to skip over my question in my emails over and over again.

Trying to buy malt from Cargill. Having a hard time getting a response. Please get in touch with me for details. Thanks!

[dick murton]

Have you tried Fawcetts or Muntons ?

[dfalken]

Seems that posting here is the best way to get Cargill to contact you. It didn't take long to be confronted by email by the same person I was referring to in my previous post.

Had similar experience with them. Finally got a response but the woman that has been handling me is not the most helpful. I have to ask the same question about 10 times to finally get an answer...she just seems to skip over my question in my emails over and over again.

[BrewinLou]

Must be that rep, my experience with Cargill reps has been nothing but fantastic, they constantly go out of the way to help us get what we need when we need it, and are very responsive. Thanks Mike Scanzello, Holly, and Brent.

[dfalken]

Yup definitely must be, as none of those names ring a bell and overall I've always had a very good impression of Cargill as a company. I lived in Minneapolis for 7 years and when I used to be an IBM consultant I worked at Cargill's Lake office (their headquarters) twice for several months each project. I still have many friends from that office that I keep in touch with, all very good people. It is a very well run company by a family that actually cares about the company, not some CEO trying to milk the stock for his/her own benefit.

Must be that rep, my experience with Cargill reps has been nothing but fantastic, they constantly go out of the way to help us get what we need when we need it, and are very responsive. Thanks Mike Scanzello, Holly, and Brent.