Solution
Development of a reliable system for assessing the malting quality of barley using automated optical analysis.This project will provide the Malting Barley chain with a novel MQ assessment tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective standard analyses currently used by the sector.
Novel inspection techniques will be researched (NIRS, NIT, Raman, Imaging fluorescence spectroscopy and FT-IR/PAS) to determine their potential for predicting MQ parameters.
A prototype measuring instrument will be designed, developed and calibrated against existing reference methods for a large number of samples.
It will be validated for use along the malting barley chain. Various versions of the tool will be tailored to meet the needs of each level of user along the malting. To this end, growers, malsters and brewers will be able to obtain the critical information they need, such as composition of the grain, aspect and size, detection of fungal infections, tracking the malting process, etc.
The OPTIMALT project results will allow raising the quality of the EU malting barley supply chain, and ensuring consistent quality in industries dependent on high quality malt.
