Exploring diverse sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) accessions for malt amylase activity

Sorghum is a climate resilient grain cereal crop originating from Africa that has traditionally been used to make a variety of fermented beverages such as pito and baijiu . In Western markets, the use of sorghum to produce beers and beverages has recently risen due to the visibility of a gluten sensitive/intolerant market and a growing interest in unique inputs for beverage production. As such, there is a developing body of research on sorghum as a malted input into beverages. A major limitation to the wider adoption of sorghum as a substrate in mashing is its low activity of amylolytic enzymes, either the result of insufficient activity or inhibition by endogenous compounds. A collection of 42 diverse accessions representing the grain sorghum diversity panel, was evaluated for associations between alpha and beta amylase content, race, origin, and seed colour as well as two classes of amylase inhibitors, phenols and tannins. Among these accessions are several commonly used genetic resources, including reference line BTx623. Notable findings include accessions with high alpha amylase content, sources that may harbour additional high amylase sorghums, associations with grain colour, and populations which may be used to genetically map the trait. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of the Institute of Brewing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institute of Brewing & Distilling