Speedier service | Near infrared machine to test brewing properties
New equipment that quickly analyzes the malting and brewing characteristics of Canadian barley will soon be in use at the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre in Winnipeg.
Managing director Robert McCaig said the centre has acquired three new pieces of equipment, including a near infrared machine that will reduce the amount of time needed to analyze the malting characteristics of Canadian barley.
Rapid analysis will allow the centre to more effectively promote the use of Canadian malt and malting barley among foreign buyers, he added.
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“We try to stay ahead of the curve in terms of analytical equipment, whether it’s on the malting side or the brewing side,” said McCaig.
“It (the machinery) will allow us to provide more and better analysis when we are dealing with customers and provide them with more data when they’re looking at new barley varieties or using Canadian for the first time.”
The centre’s malt analysis methods now produce results in one or two days using wet chemistry techniques.
Each analysis requires the destruction of a 250 to 400 gram barley sample.
With the new machine, results will be available in roughly 20 seconds using non-destructive technology on a 20-gram sample.
The near infrared device is being calibrated and should be fully functional by mid-summer.
Another new machine will be used to identify and analyze the flavour components in beer.
Western Economic Diversification contributed $82,000 to help buy the machinery.
“Canadian malting barley is recognized worldwide for its high quality,” said Lynne Yelich, minister of state for Western Economic Diversification.
“This investment will allow the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre to strengthen the international competitiveness of Western Canada’s malt and malting barley industries.”
The centre experienced some initial budgetary challenges related to changes at CWB, but McCaig said they have been addressed and the centre is continuing to provide an important service to the malting barley industry.
“There were a few hiccups at the start but … it’s basically seamless now,” he said.
The centre’s role has evolved to meet the changing needs of the industry since the CWB monopoly was eliminated, he added.
“We’re becoming more and more of an aid to the industry in helping to market, and we’re also helping to fill some gaps that have kind of appeared with the removal of the single desk,” McCaig said.
“We’re working away on a few things that I think are making us much more valuable to the industry.”
The centre is a non-profit organization established to provide technical assistance to the malting and brewing industries.
Its mandate includes evaluating new malting barley varieties, conducting malting and brewing research and providing technical and marketing support to centre members that sell malting barley and finished malt.
Funding comes primarily through membership fees, with industry supporters supplying more than half of the centre’s annual budget.
The remainder of its funding is derived through fee for service work, government and marketing programs and public funding mechanisms, including producer checkoffs.
The centre’s budget was roughly $1 million in 2011.
