Impact of barley endophytic Pantoea agglomerans on the malt filterability.

The microbial metabolic activity during malting is an important factor affecting malt quality besides barley varieties. Elucidating the effect and action mechanism of dominant microbial on malt quality will provide a new strategy for the precise control of malt quality. Pantoea spp. was identified as the dominant bacteria of barley by the aid of high-throughput sequencing technique. Moreover, the dilution plating results showed that P. agglomerans was the dominant bacteria in quantity. During malting, the number of P. agglomerans did not change significantly after steeping, but increased exponentially during germination. The quality of malt, especially the filtration rate, is affected by the inoculation of P. agglomerans in the malting process. The exopolysaccharides of P. agglomerans was the main factor leading to the decrease of wort filtration speed. When the exopolysaccharides of P. agglomerans in the wort reached at 12.5 μg/mL, the filtration speed decreased by 50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]