Yeotgireum (Barley Malt Powder)

Yeotgireum means, roughly, ‘the stuff for making yeot.’ The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes a careful home process. Hulled barley is picked over, washed and soaked for a day, then drained into a steamer basket under a damp cotton cloth and sprinkled with water as it begins to warm and sprout. It is rinsed several times to untangle the roots, and around the sixth day, when the sprouts are a little shorter than the grain, it is spread out and dried in a breezy place, rubbed by hand so it does not heat up. Sprouts that grow too long yield less powder and less sweetness. The encyclopedia notes that malt grown in the cool of late autumn is best.

Sprouting wakes up the grain's starch-digesting enzymes, and Korean cooks put them to work on rice. For sikhye, malt powder is rubbed in warm water and strained; the clear liquid is poured over cooked rice and held at about 60–70°C for four to five hours until the rice turns sweet and the grains float. Cook the sweet liquid down and it becomes the syrup jocheong, and further still the candy yeot. The encyclopedia's entry on yeot notes that malt-sweetened yeot and drinks were already used as sweeteners in the Goryeo period.

Malt is also quietly essential to traditional gochujang: in a common modern home method, glutinous rice dumplings are mashed with malt-strained water, meju powder and chili powder, and sweet-potato and sorghum gochujang also rely on malt to sweeten their starch. Industrial syrups and yeot now often use microbial enzymes instead, but yeotgireum remains a standard pantry item for sikhye and jang.

• Natural enzymes, not added nutrition: Yeotgireum is valued for its enzymes, which convert rice starch into sugars. Its own nutrients, rich in fiber and iron per 100 g of dry malt, mostly stay behind in the strained husks.
• Sugar in what it makes: Sikhye, jocheong and yeot are sweet by design; the malt makes sugar from rice, and recipes often add more. Treat them as sweets.
• Gluten: Malt is made from barley. NIDDK lists barley, including malt and malt extract, among the gluten sources people with celiac disease must avoid.
• Keep it dry: Store malt powder airtight in a cool, dry place; damp malt can mold.