Characterization, qualification and comparison of irrigated barley grown in the Cerrado for brewing malt production: Part 1

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.9732172210121

• Palavras-chave: hordeum vulgareL., malting, beer, cultivar, genotype.

• Keywords: hordeum vulgareL., malting, beer, cultivar, genotype.

• Abstract:

  Brazil imports about 60% of all malt used for beer production, which is carried out throughout the national territory. Aiming to meet the growing demand, reduce the country's dependence on foreign malt, and also reduce logistics costs, malting industries and genetic improvement companies began to focus on adapting barley to the Brazilian cerrado. Aiming at the application of these barleys in the malting process, studies are needed for the development of cultivars with adequate malting quality, which are adapted to the region and which still have productive potential. In this work, the objective was to characterize and qualify ten barley cultivars produced in two locations in the Cerrado: Perdizes-MG and in the region surrounding Brasília-DF. The barleys were cultivated in 2017 and their characteristics were established from the analysis of moisture content, classification, pre-germinated, weight of a thousand grains, germination power (PG), germination energy (EG), sensitivity to water (SA), germination index (IG), β-glucans and protein content. Based on these results, the C8 cultivar was selected as the most promising for malt production, among the materials presented, in both locations, mainly due to the results of the germination analyzes – PG of 99% and 97%; EG of 98% for both and SA of 1.0% and 4.0%, respectively for CC8 and CP8. The processing was carried out and the products were submitted to analysis of classification, moisture content, friability, diastatic power (PD), congress must, saccharification time, extract, pH, viscosity, β-glucans, soluble nitrogen, FAN and protein content (TP). The latter was one of the most relevant characters for the qualification of the materials, as it exhibited highly significant differences between the values, with variations from 12.81% to 17.73%, revealing the interference of the environment in the expression of these genotypes. The malts produced did not meet the Pilsen-type malt specifications, but have characteristics of special malts, such as: soluble TP between 3.2% and 6.5%, PG reaching borderline values ​​of 304 WK and extract contents consistent with this class, with values ​​between 74.5% and 79.4% – which promote sensory changes for the beer. Finally, it is concluded that field research must continue, as the promising results of this work indicate that with more development time,