RAPID PREDICTION OF MALT HOT WATER EXTRACT BY NEAR-INFRARED REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY STUDIES ON BARLEY

In recent years there has been an increasing awareness of the need for rapid screening tests for malting quality in barley. An infrared reflectance instrument has been calibrated against malt hot water extract (HWE). Results suggest that this type of instrument can be used to estimate HWE on barley and that this might provide a suitable screening method for use in a breeding programme. Greater accuracy is achieved if separate calibrations are made for winter and spring barleys and the correlation coefficients with HWE were 0.70 (n = 168) and 0.82 (n = 134) respectively. 1979 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling