Saladin Maltings in Scotland. History
- Ernie - Ernst Scheiner
- Jan 27
- 21 min read
Translated by WIX.com.
by Ernie Scheiner
The invention of Frenchman Jules Alphonse Saladin revolutionized malting processes in breweries and distilleries from 1877 onwards. Saladin germination boxes replaced traditional floor maltings in many places. Saladin's technological pneumatic box principle with agitators enabled the more cost-effective malting of barley for brewing and distilling. The malt quality was consistently satisfactory and allowed for better yields in beer production and distillation. To this day, numerous technical modifications of Saladin's germination box technology can be found not only in small breweries but also in industrial malt houses worldwide.
Note : Jules Saladin is predominantly referred to in whisky-related literature with other, incorrect first names such as Charles or even Colonel Charles . Furthermore, the Frenchman from Nancy is often described as Belgian in many sources.
Please see the article " Saladin, Galland. Malting Revolution" for more details.
Preliminary remarks
Spring barley thrives in the Scottish climate and on poor soils. Long sunny days and spring dampness promote the growth of a low-nitrogen barley, ideally suited for brewing and distilling. The fields in Morayshire and Aberdeenshire, as well as some areas of the Lowlands, are among Scotland's breadbaskets. Locally, maltsters processed the barley for brewing and distilling in small operations attached to breweries or distilleries.
Large-scale industrial production in the 1970s and beyond gradually led to the closure of small, local malt houses. Individual characteristics of the barley variety and terroir were lost across the board. Today, most distilleries source a standardized barley, meaning their malt comes from the same variety as, for example, Laureate . Although this two-row summer barley was first bred in 1979, it wasn't until 2023 that it received MBC Approval for both brewing and distilling malt. By 2026, Laureate Barley will dominate Scottish agriculture, maltings, and consequently, the malt produced by Scottish distilleries.
Impressions
Barley fields in the East Highlands, in the region around Glendronach and Knockdhu, as well as in Speyside with a view of Ben Rinnes. Glenmorangie Distillery gets barley from its Cadboll Estate malted in small batches and distills it into a Cadboll Local Barley Whisky.
Saladin conquers Scotland. Flashback
After the Second World War, Scottish distilleries gradually changed their malting methods. Most abandoned the traditional, labor-intensive floor maltings in the following decades. Many followed the early example of Glengoyne , which closed its floor maltings around 1910, before the First World War, and subsequently sourced its malt more cost-effectively from industrial maltings (e.g., Glenlivet 1957, Pulteney 1959, Glenlivet 1966, Lagavulin 1974, Glen Garioch 1993). The distilleries' small, manageable malt barns could no longer meet the increasing demand for malt as their distilling capacity grew.
The Saladin system replaced the traditional floor maltings at the Speyside distillery Tamdhu in 1949. A year earlier, the North British Grain Distillery in Edinburgh, founded in 1885, had adopted Saladin technology and abandoned its floor maltings. Numerous sources cite this distillery, now exclusively producing grain spirits and located near Tynecastle Football Stadium, as the first Scottish distillery with a Saladin germination system (see, however, Littlemill). Due to the natural enzymes present, the mash bill requires an addition of approximately [amount missing in original text 15%] barley malt is used in the processing of the corn base.
Note: During mashing, the natural enzymes contained in the barley grains convert their insoluble starch into fermentable sugar. These amylases are added during corn processing to efficiently break down the cornstarch into sugar during mashing.
It may well have been the innovative American Duncan Thomas who redesigned Littlemills' distillation plant, making it so advanced and versatile. His spirit pot still, with a rectification column mounted on top of the boiler, allowed stillmen to distill spirits with a wide range of aromas.
Thomas also modified the maltings. The malt for the Lowland Distillery, located south of Dumbarton, came from their malting colleagues in their own Saladin Box Maltings , which supplied Littlemill's malt needs from the 1930s to the 1960s.
This suggests that Littlemill is one of the first Scottish whisky distilleries to have a pneumatic germination box system based on Saladin's design.
The former William Teachers & Sons' Ardmore distillery in the Eastern Highlands processed its own farm-grown barley in a Saladin germination box system to produce a lightly peated malt with 12 to 16 ppm. The germination box era of in-house malt production ended in 1975/76 with the sale to Allied Breweries/Allied Distillers Ltd. The peat came from St Fergus in Aberdeenshire. During the capacity expansion with two additional pot stills (1955), management decided in 1953 to install four Saladin boxes , as the existing floor maltings could not meet the malt demand. Two malting floors were simply insufficient, and expanding the malt barns was too expensive.
See also: The Gateway to Distilleries Ardmore
In 1956, the Northern Highland Dalmore Distillery near Invergordon switched from floor maltings with four malting floors to a Saladin germination system. For four to five days, the barley grains germinated in long concrete basins with perforated iron bottoms, in a malt bed approximately 1.20 meters deep. Instead of the shovels used by maltsters in floor maltings, electrically driven mechanical spindle rakes were used to clump the root and shoots of the green malt. However, the Saladin system still required a significant amount of manpower. When filling and emptying the basins, the maltsters wore special malt boots —cloth shoes with a corded sole—to prevent damage to the soaked grains with hard soles as they laid them out and distributed them.
"We used to wear what we called malt boots..."
Dalmore Mälzer reported Drew Sinclair.
Source: Gavin D. Smith, The Whiskey Men . Edinburgh 2005. p. 25.
For approximately 25 years, until 1981/1982 , they malted barley harvested from nearby fields in the region using Saladin Boxes. After the germination box malting was abandoned, the necessary barley malt came from Bairds in Inverness and other industrial malt houses.
Dalmore Distillery . Footage from 2014.
The Gateway to Distilleries : Dalmore offers a detailed photographic tour.
The Benrinnes Distillery, at the foot of the striking Ben Rinnes, operated a Saladin germination box maltings from 1964 to 1984 (see below). The stillmen distilled barley spirits for Crawford's blend two and a half times in three pot stills. The Balmenach Distillery, licensed by James McGregor in 1824 and presumably founded earlier, built a Saladin germination box next to its floor maltings in 1964, which supplied its own malt to the mash tun until 1993. The maltings were completely demolished in 2013.
A version of the Saladin germination box rotary mechanism with wide blades at the Balmenach Distillery. The air-permeable sieve trays are clearly visible.
Historical photograph for educational purposes. © Crown Copyright: HES.
Jules' Saladin's pneumatic germination systems with sieve trays and agitators became popular among maltsters in Scotland. They called these " boxes" with "rotating helixes" or "Archimedes screws ." Besides large malt houses, such as those in Alloa, Vulcan Maltings in Glasgow, or malt houses attached to breweries like Bernard's Brewery on Edinburgh's Slateford Road, maltsters often used modified Saladin germination tank systems.
In the post-war period, Scottish distilleries gradually abandoned their floor maltings due to increasing domestic demand and high labor costs . They sought to save costs in the production of their whiskies using Saladin concepts.
Looking back. Path Brae Maltings, part of Scots Malt Ltd. , located in Kirkliston , a suburb of Edinburgh , optimized its malt production using Saladin's invention. In the large germination tanks, the maltsters processed 25,000 tons of barley malt annually from the 1920s until 1988. The maltings occupied a site where a distillery had previously distilled spirits in large quantities from 1795 until a devastating fire in 1914. The distillery, which closed in 1920, had many previous owners, including the Distillers Company Ltd. and, from 1825 to 1832, the distiller and entrepreneur Andrew Stein.
Path Brae Maltings : Technically modified pneumatic Saladin germination tank with air-permeable sieve bottoms. Fill height of the green malt pile approx. 1.20 m. Air-permeable steel mesh floor , concrete side walls with guide rails for the agitator, a pair of steel gates through which the malt was pushed into the kiln for drying.
Historical photograph for educational purposes. © Crown Copyright: HES. An unauthorized photograph of the Kirkliston Distillery with its floor maltings and kiln can be seen on the Trove website.
The mechanical malt turners at the Path Brae maltings are called "rotating helixes" or "Archimedes screws" by Scottish maltsters. Many maltsters believe that odd numbers of turners are better for malt quality, a claim that has not been empirically confirmed.
Historical photograph for educational purposes. © Crown Copyright: HES.
Note: In 1828-29, at the Kirkliston Distillery, entrepreneur Andrew Stein of the Haig-Stein Whisky Dynasty installed the first experimental, commercial triple malt patent still made of copper for the cost-effective production of malt whisky. This distillation apparatus, called a patent still , was based on patent 5583, granted on December 13, 1827, by his son Robert .
Robert's design had three preheaters and steam boiled in a separate vessel was used to heat the wash, which was intermittently sprayed by pistons into a series of chambers. The chambers were divided by crude cloths (probably haircloths). The cloth permeated ethanol well, but less so water and soluble matter, therefore acting both as a rectifier and a filter. It enabled large amounts of distillate to be produced in a single run and improved the heat economy compared to the pot stills. The process had to be stopped for cleaning and discarding the excess oily residue, so it was not a fully continuous operation.
Robert's design included three preheaters. Steam generated in a separate container heated the mash, which was then sprayed into several chambers using pistons. The chambers were separated by coarse cloths (likely hair towels). These cloths were permeable to ethanol but less so to water and soluble substances, thus acting as both rectifiers and filters. This allowed for the production of large quantities of distillate in a single distillation run and improved heat efficiency compared to pot stills. The process had to be interrupted for cleaning and the removal of excess oily residue and was therefore not completely continuous.
A second patent, 5721 , of 1830, dated December 4, 1830,
improves the previously patented apparatus:
"These improvements consist in an apparatus, by which heat is applied to a continuous supply of wash in the distilling vessel, while the wash is in a minutely subdivided state, and also in causing the hot vapor of distillation to pass into the upper part of the bath used in the process, instead of from below, as in ordinary methods; by the former arrangement a greater surface of wash will be exposed to the active action of the heat of the steam from the boiler; and by the latter, it is stated, a more perfect separation of the purified from the un-purified spirit will be obtained."
"These improvements consist of a device with which a continuous supply of mash is heated in the distillation vessel while the mash is in a finely crushed state, and also in the fact that the hot distillation vapor is directed into the upper part of the bath used in the process, instead of from below as in conventional methods; by the first arrangement a larger surface area of the mash is exposed to the active action of the steam heat from the boiler; and by the latter, it is said, a more perfect separation of the purified from the unrefined alcohol is achieved."
Source: Robert Stein Column Still Patent
The Kirkliston distillery is said to have produced 149,000 gallons of malt spirits annually. However, in 1850, following the bankruptcy of the distillery run by Andrew Stein and partners, other owners removed Stein's triple continuous malt still and replaced it with a grain Coffey still. After 2006, the former distillery and maltings site was transformed into a residential area with terraced and apartment buildings. Only the former kiln, with its stylized pagoda, remains as a relic of the site's eventful whisky and malt history.
The NEWLISTON ARMS, founded in 1885, was once a meeting place for the maltsters, distillers, coopers and craftsmen of the adjacent Distillery and Maltings.
See also: The Gateway to Distilleries Kirkliston
The Saladin System becomes popular in Scotland
Other distilleries replaced their traditional floor maltings with a Saladin malting system.
Thus, the distilleries Glen Mhor (1949 to the 1980s, see photo Rodney Burtt ) and Glen Albyn (1954 to 1980) , which distilled in Inverness, opted to install Saladin germination tank systems.
We learn about Glen Mhor Saladin technology:
'The Saladin boxes were 60 feet long and 8 feet wide. These contained the same 22 tons of barley, couched up to three feet, as were employed on the malting floor.'
Source: Glen Mhor Whisky
Sources indicate that the Saladin germination system was installed at the Glen Mhor Distillery as early as 1949. It is also stated that it was one of the first malt whisky distilleries with Saladin germination boxes (see Littlemills' introduction around 1930). It appears that Glen Mhor supplied the neighboring Glen Albyn Distillery with malt made from locally grown barley until Glen Albyn replaced its own floor maltings with a Saladin malting system. Reportedly, the Glen Mhor Distillery had an increasing demand for malt that it could not meet with the production capacity of its own floor maltings. Until 1949, the Glen Albyn floor maltings supplied the necessary malt.
Glen Albyn in Inverness. The pneumatic germination box maltings are located in the building to the right of the kiln. The Glen Albyn stills definitely fell silent forever in 1983 when the distillery closed its doors during the dramatic Scottish whisky sales crisis, and the building was demolished in 1986/1988. Today, a shopping center stands on the site.
Historical photograph for educational purposes. © Crown Copyright.
Glen Mhor Management wrote in a thin brochure:
"At Glen Mhor Distillery the distillery plan could always use more malt than the malting floors could provide. Accordingly malt had to be brought in from Glen Albyn Distillery or from outside. But in a busy season Glen Albyn malting floors could hardly carry the extra burden thus laid upon them, so some years ago the Directors of the Company decided to increase the malting capacity of Glen Mhor and thus turn the whole plan there into a unit that would no longer be dependent on any outside source whatsoever.
The first idea was to double, or more than double, the Glen Mhor painting floor space by erecting a new building alongside the old floors. Plans for the scheme had been prepared and licenses for the work had been granted.
The idea was then conceived of installing a 'Saladin Plant' in the existing malt building at Glen Mhor. Experts were called in and they found the shape and size of the existing building to be very adaptable to housing a small 'Saladin Plant'. All possible information was obtained about the 'Saladin' system of malting, not only from the breweries in England, but also from the Continent. The Management of the North British Distillery Co. Ltd, who have such a Plant in operation on a very large scale, were extremely helpful and gave the Company much useful information.
About the middle of June 1949, Glen Mhor finished off the last floor malt on the old system, and on the 17th October 1949, where the old floor existed, a Saladin Plant, capable of producing more than sufficient malt per week to satisfy the capacity of the Stills, was completed and the first Saladin Box, full of steeped barley, was being turned by the electrically driven Turners. Underground Screws for the purpose of conveying the Green Malt from the Saladin Boxes to the Kiln were also completed, while two new conical Steeps and the Thermostatic Control Unit were all in action."
The Glen Mhor Distillery never had enough malt to supply its own maltings. Therefore , malt had to be sourced from the Glen Albyn Distillery or from external suppliers. However, during peak season, the Glen Albyn maltings were barely operating at capacity. Several years ago, management decided to increase Glen Mhor's malting capacity and make the entire operation independent of external suppliers.
Initially, the malting area at Glen Mhor was doubled, or even more than doubled, by constructing a new building next to the old halls. The plans for the project had already been drawn up and the building permits granted.
The idea then arose to install a Saladin malting system in Glen Mhor's existing malting building. Experts confirmed that the building's shape and size were ideally suited to accommodating a small Saladin system. All available information on the Saladin malting process was gathered, not only from breweries in England but also from the Continent. The management of North British Distillery Co. Ltd., which operates such a system on a large scale, was extremely helpful and provided the company with a wealth of useful information.
Around mid-June 1949, Glen Mhor completed the malting of the last malt using the old system. On October 17, 1949, a Saladin system was completed on the site of the old malting floor, capable of producing more than enough malt per week for the stills. The first Saladin box, filled with soaked barley, was set in motion by the electrically driven turners. Underground screw conveyors for transporting the raw malt from the Saladin boxes to the kiln were also completed, and two new conical malt pots and the thermostatic control unit began operation.
The Saladin boxes were 60 feet long and 8 feet wide. These contained the same 22 tons of barley, couched up to three feet, as were employed on the malting floor.'
Source: Glen Mhor Whisky
In her compendium * The Scottish Whisky Distilleries* (Edinburgh 2006), Misako Udo, however, vaguely cites the 1980s as the year of closure for the Saladin Malting Boxes, which had been operating since 1954. She also reports on the origin of the peat from the Dava moor in the Cairncorns near Grantown-on-Spey.
A few streets away lay the Millburn Distillery , licensed in 1807. Its pot stills fell silent in 1985, and part of the distillery building was demolished in 1988/1989. Investors converted the remaining section into a hotel. Like its two neighbors, Glen Albyn and Glen Mhor, the Millburn maltsters had been malting barley in Saladin boxes since the 1960s. Sources indicate that the conversion from a floor malting began in 1964, and the germination box malting ended approximately one year before the distillery closed.
Source: www.millburnwhisky.com
The distilleries Dailuaine (1959/1960? to 1983), Glen Ord (1961 to 1983), Imperial (1960/1964?/1965?/1967- 1983/1984), Glen Moray (1958 to 1978) or Glen Keith also installed Saladin's economic method.
The Glen Keith whisky distillery , built in 1957 by Chivas Brothers Ltd., now part of Pernod Ricard plc, on the Keith River next to Strahisla, also featured a Saladin germination box maltings. The architects cleverly positioned this in the basement, beneath the tun room and washbacks located on the upper floors, to save space. It remained in operation until 1976.
Glen Keith in 2009 before the complete renewal of the production facilities in 2013.
Entrance to the Saladin Maltings (L), cellar of the Saladin Maltings (R), Kiln (Lu) was located directly next to the kiln and the barley delivery, former Oregon pine washbacks (44,500 l each) in the Tun Room. The Saladin germination tank rooms were located below to the left of the Still House.
The Gateway to Distilleries : Glen Keith Historical offers a detailed photographic tour.
Benrinnes Maltings
The distillery, also located in Speyside at the foot of Ben Rinnes (840m), also operated a maltings facility with Saladin germination boxes. From 1964 to 1984, these replaced the floor maltings that had been in use until 1964. They modernized malt production in the newly built distillery in 1955. The equipment is still preserved and located in an annex directly adjacent to the still house. However, the maltings are not open to visitors. A very rare exception for a select few might be offered by the Speyside Whisky Festival program, should an opportunity arise again, as it did in 2019. See Peter Moser's travelogue for more information. Benrinnes and the long-forgotten Saladin Boxes
Nowadays, Benrinnes operators usually source their malt from the group's own Diageo Maltings Roseisle and Burghead .
Jules Saladin's germination cases at the Benrinnes Distillery. Photos from 2009.
Photos copyright The Gateway to Distilleries.
The Gateway to Distilleries offers a detailed tour of the Benrinnes distillery .
Simpsons Malt. Lowland
After a trip through the Netherlands , Richard L. Simpson conceived the idea for change. This led him in 1961 from the Floor Maltings to the more efficient and cost-effective Saladin germination box technology, which, starting on New Year's Day 1963, malted Simpson Malt from Borders barley. However, these had been out of use for twenty years. The then-new generation of nine efficient Germination & Kilning Vessels (GVKs) replaced the Saladin technology. In February 2021, the wrecking ball demolished the brick steephouse , the Saladin boxes , and the kiln . The gigantic silo block of the Tweed Valley Maltings remained standing.
"The new GKV, which was fully operational at the end of 2024, has increased the annual malt production capacity by up to 15,000 tonnes per year, bringing the total production capacity at our Berwick-upon-Tweed site to 260,000 tonnes per year – around 90% of which is destined for the distillery industry,"
Simpsons Malt writes on the website.
The Simpsons Tower Maltings in Berwick on Tweed.
New tower malt house. GVK plant. Saladin's ideas are technically modified to allow large-scale production:
"The new GKV, which became fully operational in late 2024, has increased annual malt production capacity by up to 15,000 tonnes per year, bringing total production capacity at the Berwick-upon-Tweed site up to 260,000 tonnes per year – around 90% of which is destined for the distilling industry.
Groundwork on the GKV, which is where the second and third stages of the active malting process – germination and kilning – take place, started in May 2023 as part of a £10 million investment.
It is the tenth GKV to be built at the company's Tweed Valley Maltings, with the total capacity of the vessel being 400 tonnes per batch.
Malt produced in the new GKV – as well as the other nine GKVs on-site – has a significantly lower carbon footprint than the industry average, with energy for the kilning stage supplied by the site's neighboring Energy Center .
Developed in partnership with AMP Clean Energy, the Energy Center – comprising three 6MW biomass boilers and one 12MW electric boiler powered by curtailed wind energy – reduces carbon emissions from kilning by 90%.
Due to how energy-intensive the kilning stage of the malting process is, this equates to a reduction in Scope 1 & 2 emissions at the Tweed Valley Maltings site of up to 80%, and up to 55% company-wide."
Source: Simpsons Paint
Photos Courtesy of Simpsons Malt
Tamdhu Malt, Speyside
The distillery on the River Spey was built during the Scottish whisky boom on the "little dark hill" between 1896 and 1897. The famous architect Charles Chree Doig from Elgin designed the facility. He also created the typical pagoda shape of Scottish kilns, which adorned the chimneys of many malt distilleries in Scotland. Nothing remains of the original Doig buildings, located along the Cragganmore-Lossiemouth railway line, as the distillery was expanded from two to four pot stills in 1972 and to six in 1975. Its facades and structures reflect the unadorned Scottish-English architectural style of the 1960s and 1970s.
Most of the distilled Tamdhu spirits went into the blending industry. With the takeover by Highland Distillers (Edrington Group) in 1899 – The Macallan, Glenrothes, Glenturret, Highland Park – the whisky increasingly found its way into the popular Scottish blend Famous Grouse (a brand established in 1896) as well as into varieties like J & B Rare and Cutty Sark . Tamdhu was less well-known as a single malt. Gordon & MacPhail was one of the independent bottlers, along with Cadenheads and Andrew Symington's Signatory, that sold Tamdhu bottlings.
Tamdhu's Still House, three Wash Pot Stills and three Spirit Pot Stills distill barley spirit, Tun Room and Mashing Room, on the far right the monumental malting area (from left to right)
Tamdhu Distillery and Maltings in 2009
The maltings, equipped with a Saladin germination box system, were added to the complex in 1949-1950, replacing the traditional floor maltings that had been in operation until then . In 1966, malt production doubled from five to ten germination boxes. The malt was processed by the distilleries affiliated with the group.
In April 2010, the pot stills fell silent, and both the distillery and the malt house were put up for sale. In June 2011, the independent bottler Ian MacLeod acquired Distillers Tamdhu. Whisky production resumed in 2012. The sherry-influenced Tamdhu whiskies found new customers worldwide. Within the whisky community, Ian MacLeod's marketing sparked a renaissance of sherry cask-matured single malt whiskies.
It culminated in 2025 with price demands that reflected the general trend in opinion among the new generation of managers. Their approach of marketing-driven premiumization, coupled with price increases, led to a cooling of consumption in light of societal changes in the cost of living. Large segments of the global whisky community turned away from the products in disappointment.
The result: The corporations' sales plummeted. After the production boom of the past ten years, disillusionment set in, and distilleries abruptly reduced their distillation capacities.
A Tamdhu bottling released in August 2025 featured a 21-year-old whisky. The price of an incredible £299.00 for a 0.7-liter bottle of single malt at 47.5% ABV is remarkable. It matured for 21 years in standard first- and second-fill Oloroso sherry casks made of American and Spanish oak.
"We based our pricing on Macallan,"
Brand Ambassador Mike Brown said during Interwhisky 2025.
Tamdu Distillery
Pot stills, Tamdhu bottles, seasoned sherry casks from Jerez (2014). A large portion was produced at the Vasyma cooperage, which has been part of the Macallan group since 2023. Ernie at Tamdhu.
Tamdhu Maltings. Production. Process.
The delivery of barley from the region, quality control, search for the Wee Evil beetle, cleaning in the dresser, and pouring into the stock dip. Footage from 2009. The maltings were demolished in 2014 by the new owners , Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd. Tamdhu Floor Maltings' Team (photo source unknown, please get in touch).
Steeps were used for steeping, which took place in cylindrical-conical steeples. These steeples held 11 tons of cleaned barley. The soft water came from the Tamdhu Burn and a spring near the distillery. Two steeples were used to fill a 22-ton Saladin box. Each day, 44 tons of green malt were processed in two Saladin germination boxes.
The first soaking in the steeping blocks lasted six hours. In the second phase, after draining the water, there was a fourteen-hour resting period with aeration. On the second day, the steeping process was repeated for another six hours in the water. After draining the water, there was a six-hour resting period. The maltsters then transferred the barley grains, which had begun to germinate, into two germination boxes. Photos from 2009.
Germination. Batch germination takes five days in two Saladin germination boxes. From an initial 44 tons of summer barley, 37 tons of finished malt are produced.
The maltsters are filled with the soaked barley using a pumping system. The daily intervals of the six rotating agitators prevent matting of the roots and heating of the green malt. The grain bed—approximately 1.5 meters high—is aerated and cooled by fresh air from below through the perforated metal floor. After emptying, the green malt is forced into the kiln for smoking and drying using a suction and pumping system. Photos from 2009.
In the kiln, the malting process , the grains undergo minimal smoking. 30 kg of smoke formed the basis for the smoke, which diffused for about three hours through the Gren Malt spread on the perforated malting floor, imparting the smoky aromas to the skins. The drying phase lasted 18 hours. Footage from 2009. During kilning, the undesirable "grainy or grassy" aromas in the malt are released.
The dark peat was cut on site in small quantities.
Demolition. A tradition dies.
It was a shock for the people of the region. After the closure and mothballing of the Tamdhu maltings in April 2010, the new owner, Ian Macleod Distillers, had the historic facilities demolished without replacement. At the time, it was the last Scottish whisky distillery to produce its own malt using a Saladin germination box system. During Ernie's Speyside Whisky Culture Tour in May 2018, seminar participants watched the demolition of the Tamdhu Saladin Maltings with sad astonishment. Instead of producing their own Tamdhu malt, Simpsons Malt supplied the distillation malt from the Lowlands in May 2018, where the industrial maltster also demolished its former Saladin germination box maltings in 2021. Tamdhu Site Operator Eugene Shiels in conversation with Ernie Scheiner. Photos copyright Roland Horn.
Crisp Malt Lowland
The British Crisp Malting Group operates malt houses in Scotland and England. Locations include Alloa (Clackmannanshire), Portgordon (Morayshire), and the English towns of Ditchingham (Suffolk), Great Ryburgh (Norfolk), and Mistley (Essex).
Founded in 1850, the Ryburgh maltings produce most of the malt for breweries and distilleries. They document 150 years of development and innovation in industrial malting processes. Today, it houses one of the largest floor maltings in Europe. However, with increasing demand, the operators modernized the facilities, so that now the majority of malt is malted using ground mills. This also includes Saladin germination box systems, which have been operating in Alloa, near Stirling, since the 1960s. A few years later, in 1973, drum systems were added. These have since been replaced by more efficient, computer-controlled ground mill technologies.
The barley for Distillers Malt generally comes from Scottish farms. Contracts with farmers allow for local delivery of the barley to the malthouse within a 60-mile radius. However, Scottish barley intended for germinating on traditional malting floors is transported 380 miles to Norfolk, England, 30 kilometers northwest of Norwich, in 40-ton trucks.
Crisp also produces a smoked malt:
"...we prefer to 'cold smoke' wet, green malt - barley that's been germinated but not yet dried. We burn peat in an external kiln, draw the smoke into a chamber where the grain sits, and let it soak for 24 hours. The idea is to penetrate the whole kernel, not just coat the surface. After smoking, we dry the barley down to about 5% moisture and blend it to meet distiller specs: lightly peated (12 ppm), medium (25 ppm), or the big guns at 50 ppm.”
Crisp maltsters also produce malt with higher phenol levels upon request.
"We've been making peated malt at our Speyside maltings in Portgordon for the past 20 years. We supply distillers not just in Scotland but all over the world including prominent whiskey makers in Japan, the USA, Australia, Europe and England.
Our peated malt is prized for its intense smoke character and this is all down to our wet smoking method which allows the peat smoke to penetrate the barley kernel fully. We can provide various levels of peating depending on the customer's requirements and typically produce three levels of “smokiness”; lightly peated malt (15 ppm phenol), medium peated malt (25ppm) and heavy peated malt (50ppm). Higher levels of phenol are available on request."
Source: Crisp website
Malt houses in crisis
The sales crisis in the Scottish whisky industry also affected Baird's malt houses.
Management closed the Pencaitland maltings in the Lowlands, near the Glenkinchie distillery, in November. Previously, the maltsters there produced 47,000 tons of malt annually. Nineteen employees lost their jobs. The other Bairds maltings in Inverness, Arbroath, Witham , and Shobnall , as well as the storage facilities in Turiff, remain in operation.
Other malt houses, such as Crisp Malt in Alloa and Portgordon, appear to be increasing their production. Output in Port Gordon is expected to quadruple. The family-owned Simpson malt house plans to build a new 100,000-tonne malt house in Greens of Rothes in May 2025, according to management. Boort Malt 's malt houses in Buckie and Glenesk are also expected to increase their annual capacity by 40,000 tonnes and 15,000 tonnes, respectively.
In total, the Scottish whisky industry has processed so far
900,000 tons of summer barley per year.
Saladin at Work
About the author
Ernie - Ernst J. Scheiner is the publisher of the portal The Gateway to Distilleries www.whisky-distilleries.net He has photographically documented the interiors of over 150 distilleries and describes the whisky production process in detail. Since his studies at the University of Edinburgh, he has been involved with the subject of whisky and publishes in specialist magazines.
like that Ireland Journal, the small distillery, Whisky Passion and The Highland Herald . Features and stories appeared on the blogs whiskyexperts, whiskyfanblog and whiskyintelligence . As director of the Ingelheim Adult Education Center, and as a whisky ambassador, he led distillation workshops, study trips and whisky culture tours to the sources of whisky.
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