Tuesday, February 26, 2013

For several years I have been exploring the various malted beverage drinks offered by many different companies through out the world.  Jungle Jim's is a great source for these drinks and so are small ethnic markets.  These drinks are basically the wort used in making beer without the fermentation process.  In Germany it is often referred to as Kinderbier or Malzbier.  You might have seen the Goya Malta or India Malta, have you ever tried them?  I have to say that you either like it or you don't.  Remember the first time you tried Guiness?  
      This Spring we have introduced a new flavor to the line up and it is called Vanilla Malt.  My first step was to visit Cincinnati's premier beer supply shop, Listermann Brewing Company.  When you open the door your nose is treated to one of the most beautiful sweet aromas of yeast, malt and home brew.  There is a tasting station in the front room and around the corner there is a room filled with everything you need to make great beer and wine.  I used to home brew back in the day and seeing all of the hardware took me back to the good ole days of exploding bottles and strong beer that most everyone thought was crap.  We started off with a selection of different malt extracts and went back to the shop to begin the science.  We ran a few batches and I have to admit that we were all very pleased with each one.  There is a deep malt profile to the finished gelato that we had never tasted before.  Powdered malt will never achieve the complex flavors from the real stuff.  The extract is so thick it is hard to pour.  Imagine cold molasses.  We settled on a combination of the extracts for our recipe (sorry it's a secret) and began producing them into pints.  We are using our Madagascar vanilla gelato base which is made from scratch, with whole vanilla beans and a vat pasteurizer.  We process in ten quart batches each time for the ultimate small batch taste.   Vanilla Malt is available at the following stores.
Remke Bigg's Hyde Park
Carl's Deli Hyde Park
Ferrari's Little Italy  Madeira
Madison's Findlay Market
McCracken Market Miami University
Wyoming Meats
Luigi's Old World Market Mason
Keegan's Seafood Anderson
Jungle Jim's Eastgate