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    Pilot Malting Australia

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Pilot Malting Australia

About

Pilot Malting Australia (PMA) was established in 2010 as a joint initiative of the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) and Edith Cowan University (ECU). PMA is Australia’s first pilot malting facility and the only one of its type in the southern hemisphere.

At the heart of PMA is a Canadian manufactured pilot malting plant specifically designed to simulate commercial malting processes and produce commercially equivalent malt. With a batch capacity of 100kg, the pilot plant gives researchers access to commercial malting data without having to malt commercial quantities of barley. PMA provides the Australian barley industry with a valuable tool for making more cost-effective decisions when assessing malting barley varieties.

PMA also offers a means to better understand the technical performance of Australian malting barley varieties as they are processed via different commercial malting regimes used within the export and domestic sectors of the industry.

Equipment

The pilot malting plant, known as a unimalter, consists of a single chamber and allows for 100kg of barley to be steeped, germinated and kilned in the one vessel. All three stages are fully programmable and all malting conditions and parameters are monitored and controlled using state of the art GUI software and programmable logic control (PLC) systems.

Supporting the malting equipment is a water treatment plant providing accurate temperature control of steep water to mimic any commercial steeping program.

PMA also has access to ECU’s fully equipped 500L micro-brewery for small scale brewing trials, as well as the School of Science Analytical Facility with cutting-edge research instrumentation and staff with the knowledge, expertise and skills to produce reliable solutions to today’s most challenging questions related to malting research.

Services

PMA runs pilot malt batches on a fee for service arrangement and can offer the following;

  • Pilot scale evaluation of the commercial malting characteristics of new barley varieties
  • Provide advice to export customers on the malting characteristics of Australian barley
  • Provide commercial equivalent malt samples for pilot brewing to domestic and international consumers of Australian barley
  • Assist barley breeding companies to evaluate new malting barley varieties
  • Provide technical support for problem solving barley processing issues
  • Small scale brewing trials
  • Research services related to malting processes and products

Projects

Current Projects

  • Grains Australia www.grainsaustralia.com.au
    • Stage 1 malting evaluation of new barley varieties for Grains Australia’s national malting barley accreditation program
  • Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD)
    • DPIRD Science Partnership Project; Growing higher protein malt barley to service the Budweiser beer brand in China

Location

Edith Cowan University, Joondalup Campus, Western Australia.

Contact

Jon Luff, Operations Manager of Pilot Malting Australia
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