Germany: The Weyermann Malting Company of Bamberg, Germany, announced on March 1 the successful completion of contract negotiations with Heavy Duty Products Ltd. (HDP), of Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, for the installation of a Pilot Malt House on the premises of the Weyermann plant in Bamberg, according to Beer-Union.

The new miniature malting facility, which can process up to 100 kilograms (220 lbs.) of grain under real-life, production-like conditions, will be inaugurated in June 2004, shortly before the 125th anniversary of the Weyermann Malting Company. The new pilot malt house will serve as a training facility for apprentices and brew science students participating in the Weyermann Company’s training and internship programs. It will also serve as a test facility for new barley and wheat varieties and for the development of new Weyermann malt products. As such, the new pilot malt house is the complement to the adjacent and recently installed 2.5 hl (2.13 bbl) Weyermann pilot brewery, manufactured by Kaspar Schulz of Bamberg.

The new Weyermann pilot malt house is similar in design to a test malt house that has been in use by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, for the past three years. It completely replicates en miniature all the stages of the same commercial processes that are carried out in batches of up to 120 tons in the large-scale Weyermann production plant.

The new Weyermann pilot unimaltster represents the practical application of frontier research in malting science and cutting-edge production technology in malting methods. The new maltster is completely automated from start to finish  through steeping, germinating and kilning  but features flexible programming that allows for total user-defined process control.

The new pilot malt house, in conjunction with the new pilot brew house, enables the Weyermann Company to test all beer making processes from the raw materials delivered by the farmer to the beer in the glass enjoyed by the end consumer. By generating pre-production samples at each process step for laboratory analyses, suitability studies, and quality evaluations,

Weyermann can now carry out its own systematic empirical brewing and malting research, which puts it in a better position than ever to adapt its processes to the variations in raw materials from different growing years and different growing regions. Says Kraus-Weyermann, “We can now test all our variables not just in theory and in the lab, but also in practice, and we can do so well before we are committed to a particular malting regimen in our large-scale facility. The new pilot set-up, therefore, is another key step in our constant quality improvement strategy.”

Founded in 1879, the Weyermann Malting Company makes more than 50 varieties of malt, eight varieties of liquid malt extract, and SINAMAR® All-Natural Liquid Malt Color. Weyermann products are used as base and specialty malts by some 1,500 breweries in more than 70 countries, on all continents, for both ales and lagers. In the United States, Weyermann products are imported by Crosby & Baker (www.Crosby-Baker.com), with warehouses in Massachusetts, Georgia, Utah, California, and Illinois.

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