New Boortmalt plant is up and running

Boortmalt’s new maltings plant is up and running.

The new Buhler maltings, which will produce 40,000t of malt per year, began production last week. The newly built facility transferred its first batch to steep on Friday, January 24, at 2:30pm.

A statement from the company read: “The first batch went into production in the new facility as planned last week.”

Work on the new plant began in July 2019 and has finished at the target time of January 2020.

The new plant will take batches of 240t at a time and consists of a steep house containing four conical steeps; two germinating vessels; one circular kiln; and a utilities building.

Renovation work

The company also added that the renovation work to a steep which suffered a partial collapse on July 30, 2019, is set to finish on time.

“Regarding the ongoing renovation works, these are proceeding on time and Boortmalt is on track for this facility to be operational in April.”

Total capacity

When both plants are up and running the whole plant in Athy, Co. Kildare, will take in approximately 180,000t of malting barley to work at full capacity. This in turn will produce approximately 140,000t of malt.

In November, Pierre-Eric Souplet – barley procurement and risk management at Boortmalt – spoke to AgriLand. He stated it is the company’s full attention to buy the extra malting barley needed for the plant from Irish growers.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for Irish farmers that the Athy malting house is expanding, because we’re going to require more malting barley.”