SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC DETERMINATION OF MALT COLOR

The International Method for the determination of the colour of beer h as been tested by members of the Analysis Committee of the European Br ewery Convention on samples of wort produced from a laboratory extract of malt using methods EBC 4.4 and EBC 4.4.5. The method, which relies on the spectrophotometric determination of colour at 430 nm, on clari fied worts, is recommended as the designated reference method in place of the current visual method using EBC colour discs. The change will take effect from Ist January 1996. It was judged that precision values were dependent on the intensity of the colour of the sample over the range 3.6 to 25.3 EBC units. Repeatability (r(95)) and Reproducibility (R(95)) values of r(95) = 0.18Mean - 0.28 and R(95) = 0.13Mean + 0.46 were obtained over this range.