Unraveling and utilizing the changes in carbohydrates of malt in respect to sustainable and innovative malting and brewing

Malting of barley is a traditional process, producing malt as the main raw material for beer brewing. Over the past decade, however, the industry is confronted with a substantial increase in the gelatinization temperature of starch, which has a negative impact on the brewing process. Insufficient understanding of the impact of different malting steps on starch and non-starch carbohydrates furthermore leads to a loss of carbohydrates and structural elements that could otherwise contribute to brewing yield or beneficial beer properties. Also carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes are partly lost due to thermal inactivation during kilning, which is unwanted. These elements, together with changing beer consumption patterns (f.e. the worldwide surge of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer consumption), require that the science behind the malting process and malt is revisited. In this study i) the major carbohydrates in modern barley varieties, ii) the changes these varieties, their carbohydrates and their enzymes undergo during the different steps of malting and iii) their performance during mashing will be researched. These results will provide handles for the optimization of malting procedures and the validation of hypotheses on the reasons for observed changes in barley quality. Furthermore, they can provide new opportunities towards increased resource efficiency and the production of high-quality malts and beer in a consistent way.