Effect of hydrogen peroxide and ozone treatment on improving the malting quality

The effect of hydrogen peroxide (HP) and ozone (O₃) treatment during barley steeping on the quality of malt produced from two barley varieties (GrangeR and AC Metcalfe) by micro-malting was investigated. The two steeping oxidation treatments that was observed to promote barley acrospire growth. Ozone treatment improved the malt enzyme activity of endo-protease, α-amylase, free beta-amylase and total limit dextrinase to differing extents, with GrangeR improving to a greater degree. HP treatment contributed to the increase of α-amylase, β-glucanase and endo-protease. Surprisingly, HP or ozone oxidation during malting resulted in different and novel outcomes for total beta-amylase in GrangeR and AC Metcalfe. In GrangeR, total beta-amylase activity reduced with respect to the control in both treatments. In comparison with AC Metcalfe there was a substantial increase of 78% with HP and 90% O₃ in total beta-amylase activity. Malt quality including wort free amino nitrogen, β-glucan, turbidity and diastatic power was differentially increased by the oxidation induction treatment during steeping in malting. Gene expression analysis indicated that the effects of the steep oxidation treatments on enzyme and malt quality were putatively linked with the up-regulation of certain genes involved in GA synthesis (GA20ox1) and ABA catabolism (ABA8′OH). Barley grain germination assay results also showed that moderate HP induction could improve barley germination tolerance to the ABA effect. Malting including steep oxidation induction was shown to be beneficial to malt quality by improving the resultant wort quality and the efficiency of the beer brewing process. These observations point the way towards improving malt quality and the efficiency of the malting process.