Price for Malting/Malted Barley for Scotch

[Dmitry]

Good day guys!

An odd questions on the production side for making a single malt whisky in Scotland. Does anybody know the going rate for malting barley per tonne & malted barley per tonne?

Also, as most distilleries do not malt their own whiskies- do you know any of the big maltings that do it for them?

Thanks champs!

P.s on the tasting side of things- for this months whisky budget, I want to either buy 2013 Octmore 5 year old or - Glenmorangie Ealana. What do you fancy folks? Usually I would go for the Octmore, but I heard mixed rumours about this year's version.

[Alastair]

A few of the big maltings that supply many dustilleries in the industry are:

Bairds Malt Limited
http://www.bairds-malt.co.uk/

Simpsons Malt
http://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/

Then there is the Port Ellen Maltings owned by Diageo who supply many of the Islay distilleries.

The price for malted barley per tonne is very variable, it is very much influenced by each summers weather, a lot of rain and not much sunshine will see prices shoot up. Even with a lot of sunshine all summer but a lot of rain when it comes to harvest time can seriously effect the quality of the barley as the heavy combines cant get into the soft wet ground in the fields to harvest and the quality of the barley can easily be degraded by the rain. Not really sure of pricing per tonne these days

[Brummie]

I recall hearing a while back that malted barley was around £220 a tonne and as Alastair says that is very variable

[bifter]

On my tour of Daftmill distillery, Francis Cuthbert said they sent (their own) barley to Crisp Malting in Alloa. Their Web site says they do 30k tonnes p.a. so not a big producer by any means.

http://www.crispmalt.co/content/locations
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"Whisky is liquid sunshine."
[George Bernard Shaw]

[William]

You may find these maps of barley malting sites in the UK useful:

Barley malting sites in Scotland


Barley malting sites in England


The maps may be a little out of date for example the maltings in Alloa bifter mentions was acquired by Crisp from Bass in 2002 i believe.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[Dmitry]

Thanks folks! That is very interesting info. And the maps - THEY ARE BLOODY FANTASTIC!!! :D

P.s Anybody familiar with how much the price of barley changes after malting?

[Genuine Risk]