Homemade malt is the key to baking the perfect loaf of bread

EVER since the time of ancient Egypt, people have used sprouted cereal grains – malt – to make beer. For bakers, malt is also a secret ingredient that helps bread rise perfectly and develop an attractive brown crust.

Cereal grains are packed with starch, a complex carbohydrate made up of long, branching chains of glucose molecules. It is a source of stored energy for the embryonic plant to grow. But in order for cells to make use of that energy, the starch has to be broken down into small sugars consisting of one or two glucose molecules.

In the 19th century, chemists…