A Saladin box is an instrument used for

malting Malting is the process of steeping, germinating and drying grain to convert it into malt. The malt is mainly used for brewing or whisky making, but can also be used to make malt vinegar or malt extract. Various grains are used for malting, mo ...

barley. It consists of a large rectangular container about 50 meters in length, and a set of vertical

screws A screw and a bolt (see '' Differentiation between bolt and screw'' below) are similar types of fastener typically made of metal and characterized by a helical ridge, called a ''male thread'' (external thread). Screws and bolts are used to f ...

attached to a crossbar. The crossbar moves horizontally across the length of the container while the motion of the screws raises the barley from the bottom to the top. Combined with mechanical air flow across the barley for cooling, this allows for beds of barley between and deep to be turned over two or three times a day. The screws are moved and turned by a system of pulleys and belts. The Saladin box was invented by French engineer Charles Saladin in the late 1800s to overcome the problem where the roots of the malting

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley ...

would become entangled if not regularly turned by hand, forming large mats unusable for further processing, as encountered in the earlier system that used artificial air flow to cool the barley in deeper beds designed by Galland. The first U.S. brewery to use the Saladin system was John A. Huck Brewery in Chicago, Illinois. Modern malting devices use a similar systems of screws as those invented by Saladin, but use ribbon screws rather than closed screws, perforated floors for aeration and cooling, and circular vessels instead of rectangular boxes In

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

there's only one

distillery Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heat ...

that still uses the Saladin box: Tamdhu. This distillery uses two such boxes to fill the

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

, and two steeps to fill the box. Tamdhu was, incidentally, also one of the first Scottish distilleries to install a Saladin box.

References

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