Relationship between flour turbidity, malting and endosperm structure

Turbidity values of Chariot, Optic and Decanter barley varieties showed that Optic had the highest turbidity and Decanter the lowest. However, Optic malted slower than Chariot although they are both considered as good quality barley varieties and also slower than Decanter, a low graded barley variety. Scanning electron microscopy results suggested that high turbidity scores are influenced by the "open" barley endosperm structure, while localized compaction may result in resistance to milling as well as undermodification and poor malting performance in terms of friability, ß-glucan and protein breakdown.