Barley is always cheaper than malt. In fact, unmalted or raw barley is about 30-50% less expensive than malt and there is a lot of fluctuations in price and quality. That's why it's common practice in European breweries to replace a proportion of the malt with barley.
The Table gives an example of how much can be saved when replacing 25% of the malt. On average, 1.18 kg of barley is used to replace 1 kg of malt. Taking into account the cost of Novozymes' enzyme preparation Ceremix Plus, the savings on raw material costs per 1,000 hl of wort work out at EUR 300 (approx. USD 360). This represents a saving of 8% in raw material costs brew after brew. Novozymes' brewmasters can help customers to run trials and make this kind of calculation to see how much their breweries stand to save under their given brewing conditions.
Novozymes' team of brewing experts (in Customer Solutions - see page 4) can help you to conduct a trial for barley brewing. Then you can taste for yourself whether there is any difference.
Why add Ceremix Plus?
When brewing with barley, it is necessary to add brewing enzymes to balance enzyme deficiencies in the mash. These enzymes bring about the necessary transformations in the barley grain during the relatively short mashing period.
Ceremix Plus is the latest enzyme from Novozymes for this barley brewing application, and it has largely replaced its predecessors Ceremix 2X L and Ceremix 6X. These enzyme complexes are easy-to-use blends containing all the enzyme activities needed: alpha-amylase, beta-glucanase and protease, corresponding to the predominant activities in malt itself.
An important consideration when increasing the proportion of barley is the nitrogen content of the wort. With increasing amounts of barley, nitrogen can become a limiting factor as barley contributes less nitrogenous material to the mash and wort than malt. Soluble nitrogen, peptides and amino acids influence yeast growth and, hence, fermentation time. Ceremix Plus contains a protease to increase the amount of soluble nitrogen in brewing with up to 25% barley.
With the Ceremix ready-mixed preparations, there is no need to order and handle multiple enzyme products. Nevertheless, Novozymes also offers the choice of adding specific enzyme activities separately so that the brewer can tailor the individual enzyme doses to the grist.
Sometimes the malt is undermodified and the brewer needs enzymes to improve the performance of the malt as well as enzymes for treating the barley.
The advantages of barley
Though it is not as rich in enzymes as malt, the raw barley grain contains useful amounts of beta-amylase and enzymes such as protease to break down peptides into assimilable nitrogen.
Barley actually improves beer foam stability and gives a more rounded taste. But, above all, barley is one of the cheapest sources of starch for wort extract.
Drinkability unaffected
"Economy is very important for brewers, and if they can save money, they will. However, if the savings are at the expense of beer quality, they will think twice," says Radivoj Glavardanov, technical manager for brewing enzymes at Novozymes' Vienna office. He h as been with Novozymes for 23 years and went into official retirement in January, but has been kept on in the same capacity as a brewing consultant. On behalf of Novozymes, he covers the former Soviet Union, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, the former Yugoslavian and the Baltic countries. "A large number of my customers substitute 15-25% of the malt with barley. When they supplement the mash with enzymes, the beer quality is unaffected and the process is virtually the same. There is no negative impact on yeast nutrition, so the fermentation works the same. But when they go to higher levels, the quality of the beer may not be the same, even when they add enzymes," he observes.
Radivoj Glavardanov remembers the time before the introduction of brewing enzymes about 40 years ago. "Before industrial enzymes came along, it wasn't possible to work with more than 15% barley in the mash as the viscosity would be too high and the degree of fermentation would be lower," he recalls.
Times have changed and now brewers are able to substitute a higher proportion of malt with barley. Novozymes' brewing customers have the flexibility of sourcing various raw materials without impacting beer quality. In future, new brewing enzymes will hopefully make it possible to substitute even higher proportions of malt than today,
giving even greater advantages.
