Relationships among Common Malt Quality and Modification Parameters

Abstract

Friability and Calcofluor staining are used to directly assess malt modification while some standard malt quality assays also provide direct to indirect measures of malt modification. These assays include levels of malt β-glucan, Kolbach Index (KI), wort viscosity, fine-coarse extract difference (F-C), and free amino nitrogen (FAN). The objective of this study was to determine the associations between friability and Calcofluor staining and other malt quality/modification measures with univariate and multivariate methods. Malt quality data, including wort viscosity, FAN, F-C, KI, and malt β-glucan were collected on the ‘Steptoe’/‘Morex’ doubled-haploid (DH) mapping population and parents. The strongest associations between friability and Calcofluor staining were with malt β-glucan. Neither friability nor Calcofluor staining could be used to estimate protein modification. Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that no combination of traits significantly explained the variation in friability or Calcofluor staining. Principal component analysis did not add any additional information on the interrelationship among the malt quality or modification parameters.