Crisp Malting Group has now officially presented its new specialty malt plant in Great Ryburgh near Fakenham, UK. The new plant includes also an automated milling, cleaning and packing line. The investment, which totals 6.7 million GBP (US$ 8.9 million), is the first specialty malt plant to be built on a commercial scale in the UK and is geared towards the booming craft brewing industry. The number of UK breweries increased by 64% in the last five years and has a growing need for specialty malts and products.
Crisp’s Managing Director Adrian Dyter said while international breweries wanted large bulk deliveries, the ability to deliver a mixed pallet of small bags of various malts was vital to the burgeoning number of small and start-up businesses.
Instead of a conventional roast drum, the new plant uses two vibrating spiral towers for roasting, with the level of heat controlling the darkness of the malt.
“The traditional method was to use a coffee roasting drum, and that worked quite well, but it was really hard to get the consistency of product that we wanted. Now we have more control, and we can produce a much more consistent product. We can also use different cereals. Most of our products are made from barley, but now we can also use wheat, oats and rye,” Dyter said.
The new automated line is able to crush, clean and bag 20 tons of malt per hour into 25kg bags, a speed which is about three times faster than the conventional manual filling and stitching of the bags.
Crisp Malting Group currently produces 250,000 tons of malt in the UK, which is about one sixth of the total domestic malt production. After buying GlobalMalt/Tivoli Malz with plants in Germany and Poland in 2016, Crisp Malt is Britain’s largest independent malting company, represented in three countries with a total production capacity of 445,000 tons. The company has production sites in Great Ryburgh (115,000 mt), Hamburg, Germany (110,000 mt), Bydgoszcz, Poland (85,000 mt), Portgordon (40,000 mt), Mistley (35,000 mt), Alloa (30,000 mt), Ditchingham (30,000 mt), and a plant for micronized torrefied cerealsas in Northallerton.
Together with its sister company Edme, a major UK malt ingredients producer, Crisp Malting is part of Anglia Maltings under the lead of chief executive David Thompson.
