Malt spec sheets are available from virtually every malt producer to anyone who requests it. A malt spec sheet allows brewers to determine the characteristics and quality of the malt we use, select between different malts and also allow us to alter the amount of malt in a recipe or the procedures we use for handling it. This is because maltsters analyze the malt they produce and release the results in the form of a malt lot analysis. None of this, though, should be cause for despair among brewers who seek the highest levels of consistency. And the color of black roasted malt among different lots from the same maltster can vary by 40 degrees Lovibond (°L). For example, an increase of one percent in the moisture content of the base malt, along with a corresponding decrease in the extract potential, will lower the original gravity (OG) by more than one point. The remaining differences, however, can be significant enough to affect the gravity and color of the beer. And, some differences - most notably kernel size - can be tightly controlled by screening. Of course, maltsters know this and therefore blend barleys before malting and blend lots of the same kind of malt after malting. And despite strict modern quality control procedures, there are also subtle variations from lot to lot even at the same facility. This impacts such values as kernel size, starch, protein and moisture content. Variations in rainfall, soil nutrients and temperature during the growing season, along with storage and handling conditions, all affect the crop from year to year, region to region and even from field to field. Just as no two batches of beer are exactly alike, neither are lots of malt.

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