In great news for the Australian barley industry and its international customers, AEGIC’s MultiMalter prototype has been fabricated and installed, and has been busily steeping, germinating and kilning away.
AEGIC designed the MultiMalter to help international brewers and maltsters adopt new Australian barley varieties in a shorter amount of time. Australian barley is well-regarded by international maltsters and brewers, especially in China and Central and South America, but companies have told us that the frequency of the release of new Australian barley varieties is a challenge.
The Barley Multimalter project received funding through the Australian Government’s Agricultural Innovation Hubs Program, which was initiated through the South-West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub, led by the Grower Group Alliance.
Each time a new variety is launched, customers must develop new malting protocols to make sure they are getting optimum value for their business. This is a time consuming and complicated process. It’s a significant investment of both time and money for companies to implement new barley varieties into the malt and beer production process.
AEGIC’s MultiMalter was specifically designed to address this issue by greatly speeding up the process. The chief innovation is the ability to run multiple malting protocols simultaneously, which allows us to identify optimum malting conditions for new barley varieties much more rapidly and to provide malting performance information to valued barley customers.
The new MultiMalter is still in its initial validation phase, but is already generating a lot of interest in Australia and international markets. We are working with the Australian barley industry to identify how best to maximise value for all stakeholders.
“When will the MultiMalter be available?”
The brains behind AEGIC’s MultiMalter, Dr Qisen Zhang, was in Hangzhou at a major China-Australia barley symposium in January, attended by leading Chinese malting and brewing companies, and research institutions.
Attendees were very interested in the MultiMalter. The most asked question was “when will the MultiMalter be available?”
The MultiMalter is in its initial validation phase and is already generating a lot of interest in Australia and international markets. We are working with the Australian barley industry to identify how best to maximise value for all stakeholders, with the aim of having the MultiMalter aligned with industry and operational in 2024.
For more information about the MultiMalter, please email Jack King, Barley and Oat Quality Program Manager.
AEGIC is an initiative of the Western Australian State Government and Grains Australia.