Pulse Electric Field Electroporation as a Method to Improve Barley Malting Efficiency

The process of making beer hinges on the integral step of converting the sugars in raw barley grain into more fermentable forms. This process, known as malting, takes up a substantial amount of time in the overall beer making process, requiring long waiting steps and significant quantities of water. Literature suggests that this malting process could potentially be shortened a great deal through the use of Pulse Electric Fields (PEF), resulting in faster and more complete water uptake, reduced water requirements, and an improved yield of malt sugars. Batches of specific strains of barley were malted using different PEF field strengths, ranging from 15 to 30 kV/cm. Each batch consisted of 5 individual trays of barley starting with no PEF, and going upwards through the field strengths. Results showed that there was a clear point where the field strength was too strong, as the 30 kv/cm field stopped the barley seeds from germinating much at all. Additionally, there was a clear increase in germination rate and water uptake from the 15 and 20 kV/cm fields. These results suggest that not only does a correctly adjusted PEF field result in better water uptake and germination, but also that there is potential to be able to reduce overall malting times while achieving the same or greater quality of malt product. Further research aims to look into applying and further testing these findings in an industrial malting facility setting, with continuous flowthrough rather than a batch system.