“Skagit Valley developed technology that splits the difference. Starting with a small prototype that can malt 400 pounds, they devised a system that does all three steps in one drum-shaped vessel (excluding roasting). Once they confirmed it worked, they built a much larger version capable of malting 20,000 pounds of barley at once. In the years since selling their first grain sack in 2014, they have added seven of these, and each one acts independently of the others, giving them great flexibility. (They even designed one to malt solely gluten-free grains.) Other companies have systems that can do two of the three steps in one, but as far as Dave Green knows, Skagit Valley’s are the only vessels that can do the entire process.”