No malting required?

[wildcrafter]

I just read a few articles about Novazymes enzymes for grains where malting of grains is no longer required for brewing.

Anybody use this? Sounds pretty easy and if it works,,local grains can be used without the need for malting? Really?

Here's just one link about it. Google for more.

http://www.novozymes.com/NR/exeres/6...31DE9C0FDB.htm

[MikeJordan]

This method has been employed now for awhile around the EU. I have no experience with it but tasting the beers brewed from other large breweries. I have to say the finished product from several of the breweries was OK, but not great as it was standard pilsner. The main factor....breweries are using enzymes to lower the overall input cost for raw materials. Some of the breweries market the beer as being low environmental impact which I like but GMO enzymes used to make my beer is a bit too much for me. Perhaps some other voices can chime in about using it.....I believe non-GMO enzymes might also occur....

Cheers,
Mike

[Sulfur]

local grains can be used without the need for malting?

But with the need to buy the Novozymes enzymes! They argue that this is better for the environment b/c it cuts down on CO2. So you don't need the energy to run a maltings, and you don't have to import malt from far away....To me though this is part of the slippery slope argument towards less craft in craft beer. If one is really concerned about having to import malt, and would rather use their own grain, then make your own malt. That's how it was often done in the old days, many breweries would make their own malt. But why the need for exogenous enzymes?? Needless to say that is not part of the Reinheitsgebot so that would not work in Germany, here in the US I could see people using these. After all, many people already use enzymes, so why not go all the way and brew a 100% non malt beer. It's another step away from the natural order of things, from the basics, the same basics which to me make craft beer such a rewarding and satisfying industry to work in. Why not make a beer from potatoes next! Just dump in packets of enzymes, proteins etc.....slippery slope....

[dick murton]

It is being looked at for a couple of reasons. The main one of course is simply cost - the cost of malting, including transport to and from the maltings, the energy, water, effluent and capital cost incurred. You also don't lose the extract when the grain germinates, so gaining another few percent extract.

In some countries, such as India, it costs and arm and a leg to import malt because of the import duties, & rediculous problems with transport. It also means that local materials can be used more easily, and bearing in mind the size of farms and variable growing conditions and barley varieties, getting even malting is very difficult.

As different mill settings at least are required for raw barley compared to malt, there may be additional cost in the brewery, and speciality malts such as coloured malts will still be required for flavour and colour (though of course some beers are now so pale they might as well be carbon filtered)

Anyway, the craft brewing side of the industry is just that because it aims to provide a different quality product, and if that means using higher cost materials, and cahrging extra for it, then so be it. There are sufficient people around at present in the "Westernised" world who are prepared to pay the premium for a product they prefer to drink. Having said that, Happoshu "near beers" are selling well in Japan due to the price differtial primarily (or at least - that is what I have been told)

So I for one, if I get involved with micros, will not be using raw barley, enzymes etc instead of malt

[gitchegumee]

And don't forget that we can currently use a whole host of unmalted carbohydrates to a high percentage if base malt has enough DP. So what's to be gained? Taking a 40% adjunct beer to 80%? Why not just use cane sugar or modified corn sugars that have a sugar profile similar to barley malt wort?

[liammckenna]

I've got it.

Why don't we enzymatically digest straw, convert the resultant goo to maltose (enzymatically). Add some water, hops and yeast and make some truly green beer from it. I'll bet it would be some tasty.

Think of the carbon credits. We could save the planet. Think about how cheap it would be to make. We could keep the poor drunk all the time.

We could call it "The Last Straw Malt-Like Beverage"

I can even see the marketing - "Cool, Crisp, Clean. With no aftertaste"

Oh wait. I think that's somebody else's line.





Pax.

Liam