Planting Class: what is Malting Barley

Character requirement

Malting barley is the main raw material for brewing beer. There is no significant difference between malting barley and forage barley in terms of morphology, but there are some special requirements in grain characters and internal quality. The biggest difference is that the protein content of malting barley can not be too high, the high protein content will reduce the grain solubility, the brewed wine is easy to be turbid and the shelf life is short. On the other hand, forage barley requires high protein content and good palatability.

Quality characteristics

When making beer from malting barley, soak the wheat to make it germinate. Then bake, then grind off the malt root to make dry malt, and then through saccharification, fermentation and other complex processes to make beer. Malting barley is a typical cereal crop with saline-alkali tolerance, drought tolerance and strong adaptability. Under normal circumstances, there is no need for artificial irrigation, only natural precipitation can achieve a better harvest.

Variety selection

The seeds with high yield, strong disease resistance, strong stress resistance, thin skin, light yellow color, luster and no mildew smell can be selected. the suitable sowing time is before and after Frosts Descent, and the sowing rate is 8 kg per mu.

Soil environment

Malting barley is an early spring crop, which is suitable to grow in cold climate. It can adapt to a wide range of soil and can be planted in loam and light loam.

Suitable area

There are many areas suitable for planting, Jiangsu, Gansu and Inner Mongolia are the main producing areas, with sufficient light, large temperature difference and other climatic advantages, suitable for planting a large number of excellent varieties of beer; Gansu Hexi Corridor is suitable for hops growth because of drought, sunny and less rain, sufficient sunshine and snow water irrigation in Qilian Mountain, and it is also one of the major hops planting areas in the world.