The Life of Maris Otter Documentary

The Life of Maris Otter – Episode 4

Welcome to the final episode of our iconic docuseries, The Life of Maris Otter. We’ve come to the final stages of the Maris Otter journey. After the expert growers have lovingly cared for it in the fields, the farmers have carefully harvested it, and it has been carried by the truckload to our malting sites, ready to become the finest malt.

In this episode, we see our Technical Director, Dr David Griggs, take us through every step of our malting process. Weighing, sampling, testing, storing, steeping, germinating, kilning, packaging, and shipping – all the steps that this stunning barley takes on our site to become malt. Let us take you through it.

1. The barley arrives at our site by the truckload and stops at the weighbridge.
2. At the weighbridge, the barley is weighed, sampled, and tested. Sampling involves a long vacuum sampling probe that draws a sample from the truck. The sample arrives in the weighbridge office, and our team of intake experts goes through rigorous testing to ensure the barley meets our quality specifications. Read more about our barley intake team here.
3. If the analysis confirms that the quality of the grain is satisfactory, then the truck will offload the barley into our grain stores, ready for the next part of the malting process.
4. With Maris Otter, we have two ways of malting: modern pneumatic malting or floor malting. With both processes, the first step is to steep the grain. This part of the process rehydrates the grain using up to three immersions in fresh water. The temperatures and timings of wet and dry stages will depend on the type and maturity of the barley.
5. After steeping has finished, we move on to germination. At this point, the barley will start sprouting, so we allow the grain to continue to grow for four or five days, through the germination stage. This process naturally modifies the barley structure, breaking down cell walls and protein, releasing starch, and producing enzymes. During germination, the ‘green malt’ must be turned to stop rootlets matting. The pneumatic malting process is done with rotating paddles or augers, whereas the floor malting process is done by hand, using a rotavator or rake.
6. Once the barley has been through the germination stage, it is time to stop the growth and show it some heat with the kilning stage! The grain gently dries on a kiln for up to three days now, where airflow and temperatures are controlled by our expert team. Again, the floor malting process is more manual, and will see our expert maltsters hand laying the grain into the kiln with a sprayer and spade. The kilning stage is key for stopping growth and encapsulating the important extract, enzymes, proteins, and nutrients essential for making great beer and whisky.
7. That is the malting process complete! We now have the finest Maris Otter malt you love.
8. Once the malting process is finished, it’s over to the Sack Plant, where this delicious malt is packaged up and ready to go to brewers and distillers around the world. Our Sack Plant offers various loads, with 25kg sacks, 1-tonne bags, and even the option to mill your malt. Our team of packaging experts is the final step in the Maris Otter journey before it leaves our site and fulfills its destiny to become the basis of an outstanding beer or whisky. Read more about our malt packaging process here.

Next in the episode, we catch up with our friends at Lacons Brewery, who go through their brewing process, and Chris, the Operations Manager at Lacons Brewery tells us why they choose Maris Otter, “We selected an Extra Pale Maris Otter for all our base malts across our real ale range. We found it to be a fantastic maritime barley, which was really going to translate well across all of our beers.”

Why not watch our case study on Lacons Brewery here?

From field to glass, we know that Maris Otter is truly special, with all the effort that goes into it, from the growers to the maltsters and from the maltsters to the brewers and distillers. It’s a true representation of what’s great about this industry—togetherness, tradition, hard work, and passion, all combined to create something incredible.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this mini docuseries capturing its very essence that we all love so dearly. We will continue to malt this heritage barley and look forward to seeing the new creations you make with it.

Cheers to Maris Otter.

Watch Episode 4 below.