is a traditional English malt from the days of floor malting and direct-fired kilns. See floor malting. It is made much like regular pale malt, except for a final high-heat drying stage in the kiln. One of the best historic descriptions of snap malt making is in an 1885 book about English malting by Henry Stopes, who explains that “barleys selected for snap malt were small, and in other respects of an inferior quality … Color and, to a certain extent, size was immaterial, because the action of the fire when the corn was drying upon the kiln entirely hid both.” However, Stopes continued, the barley must be capable of germination, because ungerminated grains do not snap. On the germination floor, “the making of snap malt principally consist in half drying it and sprinkling a little water over what is intended for snapping the following morning, which is done to toughen the skin of the grain.” In the kiln, most of the grain’s moisture is first dissipated over moderate heat. But then the fire under the kiln wire is quickly stoked to an intense blaze, which causes the grain to swell—to “snap”—by about 25% of its size and to release a popcorn-like empyreumatic scent. Snap malt, therefore, adds flavor complexity to finished beer. In the 19th century, kilning snap malt must have been a hot and dangerous job, because, according to Stopes, the grain had to be spread a mere inch and a half thick on the kiln’s wire floor—instead of the usual 4 inches—and needed to be turned at least once every 4 min. The entire kilning process for snap malt lasted only 75 min to 2 h—much shorter than the normal 32 h to 48 h for regular floor malt.
