| Abstract: | Two Nigerian sorghum cultivars, SK5912 and ICSV400 were used to evaluate the relationships between nature of alkaline steep liquor and some malt quality characteristics over a five day germination period. Patterns of development of the malt quality indices examined were significantly influenced by the nature of alkaline steep liquor, cultivar and duration of germination, plus all their possible interactions at p<0.001. Maximum diastatic activity development was attained in ICSV400 and SK5912 when grains were steeped in NaOH and Ca(OH)2 respectively. Ca(OH)2 treatment seemed to cause significant enhancement of diastatic enzyme development in SK5912 compared to other treatments presumably due to Ca2+ stabilisation of α-amylase. Mean malt cold water extract (CWE) and hot water extract (HWE) were generally similar within both cultivars for the treatments except for ICSV400 where CWE appeared to be remarkably enhanced by NaOH treatment. Data on cold water soluble carbohydrates (CWS-Carbohydrates), CWS — Carbohydrate/CWE and CWS — Carbohydrate/HWE ratios showed that solubilised carbohydrate matter produced during malting constituted significantly higher proportion of total HWE in ICSV400 in contrast to SK5912. |
