In this Northern Brewer video, a fun collaborative project with the University of Minnesota as we
brew a four-way split batch featuring a potentially new naked barley variety from
the university’s barley breeding program. We’ll show you the brew day, tell you a
bit about the program and what naked barley even is, share tasting notes from our group analysis,
and discuss some interesting things we learned along the way about barley and barley breeding.
Before we crack into it, if you’re all about these videos of brew days and ingredient experiments,
be sure to like this video, subscribe to Northern Brewer’s YouTube channel,
and share with anyone you think would appreciate it.
Hey everyone, it's Chip Walton at Northern Brewer HQ in Roseville, MN, with an in-depth look at an
eye-opening brewing project we were recently a part of. We were invited to it by Kevin Smith,
the head of the Barley Breeding Program at the University of Minnesota. This program is based
on the school’s Saint Paul campus, and is where they test all sorts of grains – not only barley,
but things like winter wheat and oats – to the test and determine whether they will become
commercially viable and can be released as a fully available new variety to farmers and growers. It’s
one of few large programs in the country that does this kind of work with potential new varieties.
These include a variety of naked barley, which hasn’t been released, but the U asked professional
craft brewers – and us here at Northern Brewer – to brew with it and give our feedback. This
is all part of a USDA grant researching multi-use, organic, naked barley. One of the challenges with
farmers growing barley is that if they grow a barley and it doesn't quite meet the specs for
malting, then it might only be good for animal feed, and the price drops. If it’s malt-worthy
(and thus brew-worthy), that makes it much more valuable. So, this was a very interesting project
for us to be part of as both homebrewers and purveyors/retailers of fine malt products.
Before we get into the brewing experiment, you might be wondering: what is a naked barley?
Naked barley is simply barley with grains that thresh freely out of the husks or hulls found
on normal covered barley. Why is it naked? In normal hulled barley the outer parts of
the barley flower (or pales) are ‘glued’ to the grain as it develops. In naked barley the gene
that controls the production of the ‘glue’ is mutated and so the pales are only loosely
wrapped around the grain, so they fall off easily during threshing at harvest time.
This particular naked barley candidate from the University of Minnesota is a
variety of 6-Row barley malted for this project by Vertical Malting in Crookston,
Minnesota. As you can see in this side-by-side comparison with hulled or covered Rahr 6-Row on
the left and the naked malt kernels on the right, the naked variety certainly looks different – sort
of like wheat berries (although not as plump) with a distinct lack of chaff of husk material.
We asked Kevin Smith for any input he might provide us to help us decide how to use the malt.
He said that several craft brewers had tried the hull-less malt,
either at 100% of the grist if they have a mash filter or in a blend with other covered malt.
Hull-less has more extract per pound of malt due to its lack of husk,
meaning there’s more starch-containing kernels per pound of brewer’s grist.
He also said that husk is anecdotally associated with off-flavors, and he’s heard this as a
criticism of 6-Row in particular, which has a higher husk to kernel ratio than say 2-Row malt.
Also, 6-Row varieties grow well in the Midwest, so he thought it would be
interesting to do a blend of covered and hull-less 6-Row as part of our analysis.
Aside from brewing applications, Kevin mentioned that malt husk can accumulate
mycotoxins when disease is present, so it is possible to reduce risks of
contamination by intentionally losing the hull in the field.
Finally, hull-less also has food and feed uses,
so it could be a multi-purpose barley giving farmers more options.
With this information in hand,
we headed into the Brew Cave to develop a plan and recipe for testing the naked malt.
Here’s video from our brew day as I explain how we decided to set up our experiment. Of course,
we aimed for identical conditions across all four brews for the sake of comparative analysis.
We brewed 20 gallons of wort in total;
two 10-gallon batches, each with 20 lbs of 6-Row barley. One batch had a grist of 100%
husked Rahr 6-Row malt. One batch had a grist of 50% Rahr 6- Row malt and 50% UM Naked Barley.
Mashed at 151F for 60 minutes followed by a 168F mashout temperature rest for 10 minutes.
Ran off the wort to collect the same amount of wort in both brews.
Brought the wort to a boil and hit it with equal proportions of Cluster hops
at 60 minutes and 10 minutes to target 18 IBU; keeping the bitterness and hop flavor
fairly neutral so it would be easier to assess differences between the malts.
Once the wort was chilled, each batch was then split into two 5-gallon batches and oxygenated.
One half of each was pitched with yeast starters of Imperial A07 Flagship at a
rate of 1M cells/mL/deg Plato and fermented as an ale. The other half was pitched with starters
of Imperial L13 Global at a pitch rate of 1.75M cells/mL/deg Plator and fermented as a lager.
So, two lagers, two ales; 100% hulled 6-Row up against a 50/50 blend of hulled and naked 6-Row.
Some Brew Day Observations from R&D brewer Brad Segall:
Brad reported there were no discernable differences
in outward brewing appearance as far as mash, lauter, or boil go.
No stuck mashes or any other noticeable differences in brew day expectations when
naked barley was used as 50% of the grist. Grist milling was normal apart
from the noticeable visual lack of husk. Brad noted that the blended version behaved just
as one would expect from a batch utilizing 100% traditional hulled 6-Row barley malt.
As far as extract yield: The version consisting of 50% hull-less barley did
provide a higher extract yield compared to using 100% hulled 6-row barley given equal
weights of barley and volumes of finished wort.
Here’s a look at the numbers:
For the 100% Hulled 6-Row Batch: First runnings gravity was 1.070.
Pre-boil gravity was 1.046. The OG after boiling and chilling was 1.050.
Final gravity of the lager version was 1.011. And the final gravity of the ale version: 1.009
Compare that against the batch that was half hulled and half naked barley:
First runnings gravity was 1.074. Pre-boil gravity was 1.048.
OG was 1.052.
FG of the lager version was 1.012. Final gravity of the ale version was 1.011.
After taking those measurements into consideration you can see the version
containing the naked barley did indeed contribute more extract yield to the wort in comparison to
the 100% traditional hulled version. Not a huge difference on our scale as homebrewers,
but enough to make us think about what the benefit would be to a larger brewing operation as it
relates to cost of raw materials. Remember, higher extract yield means less malt needed.
Also, although the first runnings gravity was higher for the naked barley version,
the pre-boil gravity did not see a linear increase in gravity as high as the 100% hulled version
(although still an overall higher number). This is likely due to the nature of the lautering,
and runoff in the naked barley version being slightly impeded by the lack of husk matter
acting as a filter bed allowing for more even rinsing of the sugars. Despite this, the overall
extract efficiency of the 50/50 naked/hulled batch was higher than the 100% hulled batch.
Now it was time for tasting notes. After the beers were fermented, conditioned,
and carbonated, we invited a group of UM barley program staff, students and field technicians to
NBHQ for a group tasting and discussion. It was exciting to see the beers being well-received by
this group. And when we say splitting hairs here, we mean it. With such a basic and simple recipe,
we didn’t expect huge differences in flavor, aroma, mouthfeel. And that’s just what we found:
only slight and subtle differences. But, enough to get the group thinking and talking.
Several of us felt like the two 50% naked barley versions did seem to have a richer malt
character – sort of cracker-y and like sweet yellow cake. Whereas the 100% 6-Row versions
did have a bit of something else in the balance – maybe an astringency, maybe a bitterness, maybe a
combination of both; just not quite as “clean” for lack of a better word as far as the malt character
was concerned. This might be explained by naked barley not having as much tannin and silicate from
the husk material, which clears the way for the actual malt flavor to come off as a little denser.
However, at least one person felt like they liked that slightly more tannic and dry mouthfeel of
the 100% 6-Row Lager specifically because it seemed “more familiar" to them from a
beer drinker’s perspective – which I thought was very interesting. Once they said that,
I was like, oh, I get that. I see that it might be too clean depending how you like your lagers.
Along those lines, another participant felt that the aroma
between the ale versions was very similar but the overall flavor seemed a bit weaker
in the 100% 6-Row Ale; there was more robust character in the 50/50 Ale.
And, of course, these beers aren’t just malt. There are hops, yeast,
fermentation characteristics to consider. Kevin Smith himself said he felt the
difference between the malt bill was more noticeable between the two ales
against each other than it was in the two lagers – suggesting that the yeast strain
and beer style in this case might have been a bigger differentiator than the malt itself.
In the end, when asked to choose an overall favorite,
more people at the table said they preferred either the 50% naked
ale or 50% naked lager. Fewer people chose one of the 100% 6-Row versions.
Beyond the flavor, there was some discussion of the appearance and clarity of our beers.
Brad said he thought this malt could help produce clearer beer. Because a
lot of polyphenols and things that cause haze in beer are present in malt husk;
without that malt husk, it's easier to clear the beer. Which for large breweries, again,
might help cut costs because they wouldn't have to use as much filter media or finings agent to
make the beer as clear as they would had it been hazy because of the polyphenols from malt husk.
Another interesting thing we hadn’t thought about because of the small-scale of homebrewing,
is Kevin mentioned that some craft breweries he’d worked with were
interested in the naked malt because it would yield less waste product. And when
you’re possibly paying someone to come haul away your spent grain and other
byproduct – especially in a dense city area – that cost adds up pretty quickly.
Again, these tasting notes are very much splitting hairs, and in the end we ended up talking way more
about the logistical benefits that a naked barley might have over some kind of mind-blowing flavor
component – again, being higher extract yield, less waste, things like that.
When Kevin’s team asked us if there were any styles or situations in which this
naked barley might be most useful, we had a couple of quick thoughts.
We thought in any beer where the brewery values extract yield per unit weight of
grist input. This could be due to factors such as available mash tun space or cost concerns.
For specific beer styles, we threw out a couple of things including all-malt light American lagers.
As we all know, these beers are difficult to brew because off-flavors have nowhere to hide,
and a bit less husky, tannic flavor might be appreciated.
Hazy IPA - where you want to cut down on any
astringency and let the malt support the pillowy body and hops. Really,
any other beer where astringency or other husk related off-flavors are of concern.
It meant a lot to us to have Kevin Smith's team come here to Northern Brewer HQ,
invite us into this conversation, taste the beers that we brewed. It also meant a lot to have him
say our experiment was unique and eye-opening and helpful to his team in a way. Some of the
pro brewers who got a chance to brew with this malt, they would run it through a one-off beer,
which is all all and good and cool, but it doesn't really give it a side-by-side.
Our setup was a little bit more controlled so that you could see the small and subtle
differences for comparison and contrast in the grist that we chose to use.
Very cool, once again, to be invited to this at all and to have our
feedback taken seriously from brew day function to sensory tasting notes. We are actually going
to keep the party going and continue working with the university and their Barley Breeding
Program documenting a full season. We were just out there this week shooting video and
talking with the team as they were planting the brand new trial plots or test plots of barley.
And we're gonna keep shooting with them through the growing season into
harvest and into the lab where they do all the analysis on these varieties. Because we think,
like us you homebrewers and craft brewers are malt nerds, and appreciate knowing the steps that a
lot of these raw materials we might even take for granted a little bit, how they get to where they,
how they find new varieties and decide they are worthy of going into our mash tun.
Stick with us. Subscribe to Northern Brewer’s YouTube channel to see the ongoing series on
that. And if you have any ideas for other ingredient experiments you'd like to see,
please let us know in the comments below, and we'll see what we can get going in the Brew Cave.
Until then, cheers, happy brewing, and take care.