MALTING
Heineken uses special brewing barley for its beer. This barley
first has to be malted. All in all, the malting of barley takes
around nine days. The barley first has to start germinating.
That is done by mixing the barley with water and leaving it
to soak. After about five days, when the germinating shoots
(acrospires) have reached the right length, the drying pro
cess, also known as 'oasting', is started. But what happens
during germination? Even while the barley grain is still
soaking, its germ begins to produce enzymes that are needed
to convert the insoluble starch and insoluble proteins into
sugar and soluble protein respectively.
The germination process is stopped by blowing hot air over
the grains of barley. This not only brings germination to a
halt but also determines the colour of the future beer.
The less warmer the air, the lighter the beer. The acrospires
shrivel up in the hot air and are brushed oj^the grains.
After that the malt is sieved and it is then ready for tran
sport to one of the many breweries throughout the world.
plies were sourced from another mal
ting plant that Heineken had bought:
the Roelants Malting Plant in
Ruisbroek, a village south of
Antwerp.
Production increased to 120,000
tonnes per year and the malting
plant started looking for other custo
mers within the Heineken group. By
the end of the 1980s Mouterij Albert
had built up a healthy customer
base. In the 1990s developments
started to pick up speed. Production
facilities in the Wijnegem unit had
become outdated and the unit was
closed down in 1993. To offset that
loss of production capacity the unit
in Ruisbroek was again expanded to
an output of 160,000 tonnes of malt
in 1994. In the meantime the malting
plant was exporting its finished pro
ducts to faraway destinations like
Argentina and New Zealand.
In 1998 the management again dis
cussed expansion plans. The impor
tance of the raw materials quality
and the improved efficiency of the
expanded facilities led to the
Executive Board's decision to give
the go-ahead to the expansion.
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