Research Article,Sorghum malt is an important raw material in opaque beer brewing. Use of high tannin sorghum varieties reduces malt
quality due to binding of tannins to proteins. Tannins are usually leached from sorghum grain using formalin during the
steeping stage of malting. However, formalin has been shown to have potentially harmful health effects thus driving the
need to find alternative methods of tannin removal. In this study, the effectiveness of alkalis (calcium and sodium
hydroxides) was assessed. The amount of tannins in red (NS5511) and brown (SMILE) malting sorghum varieties were
determined by the butanol-HCl assay and compared to other food varieties. The NS5511 and SMILE were steeped in
0.02M and 0.04M concentrations of each of Ca(OH)2, NaOH and formalin for 6hrs, subjected to germination conditions
(26?C for 115hours) and kilned off at 60?C for 50hours. The germination rate, as measured by the chit count was
determined and the alkali treated samples had the highest germination rates compared to formalin. Furthermore, the
alkali treated samples had highest diastatic units. The amount of residual tannins was determined, and formalin
treatment leached slightly more tannins than the alkalis. We conclude that alkalis can replace formalin since they are
almost equally effective and have less serious health effects.,NUST Research Board, Delta Beverage
