Podcast addendum on Malted Barley

[GMO]

Just a little something I've stumbled across today concerning malted barley and myth busting. I had a customer come to me today asking about diastatic values, he's seen an advert for malted barley diastatic power 250 minimum for a German barley imported to the UK. Advert claims 75% more diastatic power than anything else available.
A couple of issues I see with this:
Firstly, diastatic power can be measured on two scales. Degrees lintner or windisch-kolbach index. In the UK, we use lintner, in Germany they tend to use WK. The issue with this is simple, there's a formulae to convert between the two but as a rule of thumb 30 L = 89 WK or three times the lintner figure. Lintner maxes out around 155L. So if you see a figure over 155 divide by three for a rough actual value when comparing. Making this stated diastatic power actually 80 L which is very middle of the road.

However, the second issue is this. Brewers are only concerned with amylase alpha and beta enzymes which convert starches to sugars. And diastatic value is a measure of this only.

In horticulture as well as amylase, we are looking for catalytic enzymes protease urease phosphatase and chitinase which are not measured and the only way you can evaluate these without a lab is looking for physical differences in growth during field tests. Which I do and have done extensively.

Wherever you buy from dudes, don't get sucked in by smoke and mirrors.
Know your onions.

All the best GHO

[Guest]

Thanks for this. Learn something new in this game every day. I'll have to keep reading those ...ases and chitin....s a few times though to keep used to the names

It's good to have you here with that knowledge at hand. How long would you say your malted barley would last before getting new?

[Guest]

I get through a few kilos a month in season pal, life span it'll work indefinitely but I'm aware the enzymes are most useful at peak freshness. It'll stay good for months but it's best when fresh. You'll use it before you need to throw it that's certain.