Malting Barley Shortage Challenges

A shortage of high quality malting barley is widely forecast for the coming year, posing a challenge for brewers trying to maintain yields.

2/01/2011 -- “Across Europe a variety of adverse weather conditions has reduced barley production. Energy costs for malting have also risen compared to 2009, though still not quite at the highs of 2008, and malting capacity is not being fully utilised, especially in Europe. All of these factors have the overall effect of reducing supply volume”, explains Jolande de Ridder, Kerry Ingredients & Flavours EMEA Marketing manager for Beverages.

To help meet the challenges around supply and quality Kerry has been conducting research and developing products that will help maximise yields for brewers. Trials on 2010 Canadian malted barley, carried out by Kerry’s in-house brewing experts, have indicated high levels of beta-glucan. This can impair mash or beer filtration, and causes the characteristic beta-glucan haze, due to insufficient hydrolysis of the beta-glucan during mashing. This issue is especially important in high adjunct barley brewing.

“Our tests indicate that the beta-glucan content in 2010 malted barley is significantly higher than that in 2009 malt, at 0.54% dry, compared to just 0.23% for 2009 malt”, comments Jolande. “However, help is at hand from our in-house brewers, who will be available to help customers overcome this problem, for example by working with products from our Bioglucanase range.”

Kerry Ingredients & Flavours Bioglucanase enzymes can be used in both mashing vessels and fermentation/maturation tanks to hydrolyse malt/barley β-glucans and remove large β-glucans from wort and green beer.

“In our trials, we found that using 150g/tonne of our Bioglucanase GB product decreased beta-glucan, increased run-off, lowered viscosity and increased extraction,” explains Jolande.

Kerry has also conducted a number of trials with its Bioglucanase HAB and Bioglucanase HS products. Bioglucanase HAB is ideal for intermediate to high level (90%) barley adjunct brewing and increases throughput when using mash filters, delivering improved beer filtration and reducing filter aid consumption, leading to brewhouse yield improvements of 1-2%.

“This may sound a small improvement. However, when taking into account an 11 tonne brew of 30% barley run through a mash filter, overall brewhouse losses, compared to the current process and enzyme, were reduced by 0.4%. This amounts to estimated overall savings, including enzyme costs, of around €19 per 1,000 hectolitres”, concluded Jolande.

Bioglucanase HS is ideal for 100% barley brewing, delivering significant improvement in mash filtration by decreasing or removing the ‘gel layer’ which can reduce mash filter efficiency. It also increases the number of brews per day that can be undertaken with 100% barley.

In 2010 Kerry launched its ‘One Kerry’ business strategy, which provides a single point of contact to access the many different benefits of the company’s technology and applications capabilities. This in turn provides an extremely agile way to meet the needs of food and beverage markets and customers.

By taking advantage of the ‘One Kerry’ approach, customers can build consumer-preferred products faster and more cost-effectively compared with the traditional approach of co–ordinating many different suppliers of single technologies.