Homemade Maltose | 麦芽糖

I just got covid! And so I thought it’d be a great time to sprout myself some quarantine buddies… who unfortunately did not make it to the end of my covid isolation (I’m still positive lol)

Here’s a short tutorial on making maltose at home - one of the oldest human-made sweeteners and probably also the reason why the Chinese word for sugar (糖) has the word rice (米) in it. A syrup is extracted from cooked glutinous rice through a process called ‘saccharification’, where starches are broken down into simple sugars. What helps this happen is the amylase, an amylose/amylopectin-digesting enzyme, that is present in the wheat sprouts. The saccharification process is also used to produce stuff like corn syrup, although at the industry level they have other (probably more stable) sources of enzymes to use.

I hope you'll give this a try even if you’re not in quarantine like me! :)

Recipe notes:
Do make sure your wheat berries are sprouting grade. They need to be fully intact, not hulled or processed, or they will not sprout. I thought I was smart and got some cheap wheat berries the first time I tried this... they ended up moulding instead of sprouting hahaha. I got these off Shopee: https://shopee.sg/MH-FOOD-Organic-Whe...
4 days of sprouting is ideal for Singapore's climate (even in the 1940s when street hawkers were selling freshly made ding ding candy from homemade maltose, they took 4 days to sprout their wheat berries). But if you live somewhere colder, it could take up to 6 days.
Ensure that the glutinous rice is fully cooked - slightly overcooked and mushy is fine. The starches need to be fully gelatinised before saccharification can take place.

Cheers,
Yeo Min