BARLEY Australia is considering the use of pilot malting facilities as part of its malt barley accreditation process.
Speaking at the Barley Australia forum in Adelaide last month Tress Walmsley, InterGrain chief executive and member of Barley Australia, said the Pilot Malting Australia facilities owned by the Australian Export Grain Innovation Centre (AEGIC), could be used to assist in streamlining the malt accreditation process.
“There is no doubt the accreditation process has value and provides information to the industry but we need to ensure the system is flexible and robust,” Ms Walmsley said.
She said the use of pilot malting equipment could help in easing the strain on commercial malting equipment.
“It would reduce the load on our commercial malting facilities.”
“We could have a two-stage accreditation process, where the first stage is done using pilot malting equipment then moving onto the commercial scale if the results warrant it.
“By doing this we could provide information to the industry in a more timely manner, but we need to have consultation with the industry as to whether they like the idea.”
If the industry approved of the switch, Ms Walmsley said the best case scenario was that it would be implemented by 2018.
She said the industry would need to be assured that the pilot malting capacity could match commercial malt houses and provide higher value differentiation than micro malting if the proposal was to go ahead.
Test barley would need to come from three different farms across two different geographic regions and be made into six batches of malt to be considered for malt accreditation under the plan.
Ms Walmsley said the malt accreditation process was currently under strain due to the run of droughts in south-eastern Australia putting pressure on stocks of suitable quality barley.
Pilot malting is a step below commercial levels but it is larger scale than micro-malting, which could not be considered as a suitable test for potential commercial-scale malting as the sample size is too small.