Wooden malt shovel with short handle

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

51541

Title

Wooden malt shovel with short handle. Right angled piece of wood at the end of the handle.

Description

Wooden malt shovel with short handle. Right angled piece of wood at the end of the handle. The base is blackened and has paint stains.

Date

1900

Location

Museums Collection Centre

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums and Galleries

Since the 16th century, Leith has played a major role in the history of distilling in Scotland. First wine and brandy, and from the 18th century, whisky too with as many as 100 warehouses at its height.

Used in the traditional process of floor malting, this wooden malt shovel would have been used in Malt Houses to turn the malt by hand by the Maltster - an incredibly labour-intensive process. Great pride was taken in making these tools from a single piece of wood.

Until the 20th century Malt Houses were common in most villages. Typically, they are long, low buildings operated mostly in the winter due to the 13-17˚C temperature needed for the germination process. However, this provided seasonal employment for agricultural workers who often found themselves out of work during the winter months. In the process of floor malting, once the grain had been soaked it was spread out onto a tiled floor, usually in a 15cm thick layer, to sprout for up to 6 days. This grain would need to be turned constantly using a malt shovel to release heat and CO2 given off by the grain keep it oxygenated and prevent roots matting together.

Towards the end of the 19th century pneumatic malting was introduced, so malting floors and malt shovels were no longer necessary. Today, only a handful of traditional malting floors are still in use by a few boutique malting companies.

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Related subjects

Manufacturing Industry > Manufacturing facilities > Maltings

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh