Lesson 6 - Malt Quality

Table: Malt analysis sheet (European supplier)

Table: Example malt specifications for two-row and six-row North American malted barley

The table below summarises the analyses undertaken on malt by group.

Table: Analytical parameters linked to major groups of malt specification

To summarise the information in the above table, let us look at some of the key points from this lesson:

• Three institutions (IoB, EBC and ASBC) develop and govern the methods most widely used for malt quality analyses.
• Analyses measuring the same attribute may have different units, depending on the method used. Typically, there are equations to convert between the different units.
• We must specify malt that meets our brewing requirements and check the CoA and malt delivery to confirm that it meets our specification.  

Each parameter on the CoA can be linked to the malting process and/or the brewing process. Problems in malting can be linked to problems in the brewing process, for example, high β-glucan in malt can negatively affect wort separation and beer filtration. By understanding the analytical parameters of malt, we can set malt specifications to suit our beer and brewing process and check CoAs received from suppliers against this specification.