Quality assessment of different sorghum varieties for their brewing potential

Four sorghum varieties (SK 5912, KSV 4, KSV 8, ICSV 400) were malted and extracted under similar conditions to assess their quality for brewing. The results showed that, in general, the sorghum varieties had high malting loss which was attributed to the high germination temperature used. The sorghum varieties also developed low levels of amylolytic activity (a-amylase and ß-amylase), and with similar ratios. When the sorghum malts were mashed at different temperatures with the aid of commercial enzyme preparations, it was observed that mashing temperatures were more important in sugar release than additions of commercial enzymes. This was because at the lower mashing temperature, sorghum starch was not adequately gelatinised. However, when commercial enzyme preparations were added, low levels of enzymes were very effective in reducing wort viscosity and producing free amino nitrogen (FAN). Although, both commercial enzyme preparation and mashing temperature influenced sugar production, the malts produced glucose and maltose at similar ratios. Therefore good quality malts can be produced from sorghum, however mashing will employ commercial enzymes and mashing regimes are not yet optimised. © 2006 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling.