The maltings will be operational all year round.

Attached to the distillery is a thousand-acre farm, Balvenie Mains, which provides barley used to make The Balvenie. barley is malted in order to cause germination, which activates enzymes enabling the starch to be converted into soluble sugars. The Balvenie Distillery has the last active traditional malt floor in use in the Scottish Highlands today. The barley is first soaked in tanks of spring water and aerated regularly during the two to three days in the "steeps". Full of moisture and with the enzymes responsible for the conversion of starch to sugar now activated, the wet barley is spread on the malting floor for 5-7 days where it starts to germinate. A complex biological action starts to render the starch soluble and rootlet growth takes place. Four men in different shifts tend the malting floor, turning the barley three times a day, seven days a week, in order to stop the roots matting and to ensure even germination.