When I've bought torrified wheat in the past, it's looked very much like ordinary wheat malt. But in my local HB shop today, there were bags labelled torrified wheat that resembled flaked barley. Are there two types? Or wrongly labelled? I should have queried it with the woman in the shop. Any thoughts, anyone?
This is one of the things that used to confuse me too. You are referring to two different things here; different processes and different grains.
There are four basic forms of grain; raw, torrified, flaked, and malted.
Raw is hopefully obvious enough except to say that efficiency is lower than other forms. The flavour is generally grainy and raw.
Torrified is steamed at very high temperatures until they puff up and resemble a slightly bigger version of the grain, looking like puffed breakfast cereal. Because of the high temperature used the enzymes are largely denatured so the diastatic power is low. Torrified grain needs to be milled. The flavour is generally clean and crisp.
Flaked is much the same as torrified but the steaming process is generally at lower temperatures and the grains are then passed through rollers to flatten them. Flaked grain doesn’t need to be milled. Again the flavour is generally clean and crisp.
Malted is produced using a far more gentle process that through germination of the grain activates enzymes and through subsequent kilning adds flavour. This form of the grain has great diastatic power. Malted grain must be milled although a more coarse crush will give the same efficiency just taking longer to mash. Malted grains as you might expect give a malty flavour.
You also referred to barley and wheat, these are different grains so have different flavours and offer different benefits. Flaked barley for example adds unfermentable sugars giving improved body and mouthfeel. Flaked wheat adds high molecular weight proteins to help with foam production and stability. Flaked oats add lipids and gums giving a more silky and creamy mouthfeel.
Long answer but hopefully helps you understand that what you were looking at was actually
flaked wheat (because it was flattened) but is still torrified wheat (ie steamed and puffed - prior to being rolled). Flaked barley might look similar but has different qualities to flaked wheat.
. I think I’ll go hide in the garage with my brewkit! I’m a few hours in and already not quite to plan for the day after getting up later than planned to take my daughter to a training day and the water taking longer to heat up than expected!
)
