LISTEN: How Malted Rice Could Become a Key Ingredient in Beer Brewing

[00:17] Jenifer Fouch, host:
Hello, and welcome to the Arkansas Food, Farms and Forests Podcast. I’m your host, Jenifer Fouch. Today we are talking about a study exploring how rice could play a greater role in beer brewing. And to explain further, we’re joined by Scott Lafontaine, flavor chemist and assistant professor in the food science department. Scott, thanks for being with us today.

[00:38] Scott Lafontaine, flavor chemist and assistant professor in the food science department:
It’s great to be here.

[00:39] Jenifer: 
We are very excited about this conversation. It’s very interesting and very exciting. And first, I’d like to talk about your title before we get to the study. Flavor chemist – it sounds like a very fun job. Tell me a little bit about it. How do you become a flavor chemist and what do you do?

[00:59] Scott:
Yeah. So, it’s a little bit like the CSI of foods, right? So, it’s the molecular deconstruction of raw materials or value-added products. So, we use instrumentation as tools to look at the chemistry, you know, the molecular makeup of, of, these raw materials and value-added products. And, you know, here in Arkansas, that’s rice, that’s blackberries, from a raw material perspective. But we’re also on the production side, working on beer and nonalcoholic beer, or wine.

[01:31] Jenifer:
Very cool. And how do you discover that “I want to be a flavor chemist” or how did you get into that industry specifically?

[01:41] Scott:
So, my path was not a straight path into, like, working on flavor. I started off in toxicology and I was working on environmental air pollution. And the same techniques that we were using to look at air pollution, you can use to look at flavor, right? And so, when I joined on, I did my PhD at Oregon State University.  And during that time in 2015, we didn’t know what was in hops that was driving their aromatic potential in beer. There was a total oil measurement. Basically, you can take hops and boil them in water and you have a little condenser, and the oil condenses after, you know, an hour of boiling. And that total oil amount that would be there after the hour,  that was what brewers would relate to aromatic potential. But it turns out that 60% of that oil is made up of just fluff, myrcene. Smells green but doesn’t make it through the brewing process much. So really, we wanted to leverage that analytical instrumentation that I had to break down, that, that oil into the fractions that actually matter and impact beer quality.  So, that’s how I got into it. And then during that process started to learn that, you know, not only do we need analytical instrumentation to be evaluating these materials, you have to use sensory science, right. And so, then you have to take that panel of individuals, train them to the products, train them how to taste certain features of those products and then relate that to the chemistry.  And to me that was fascinating, right? You have these two completely – I mean they’re linked sort of – data platforms, but they, they’re generated two different ways. And using a human as an instrument, too is pretty fascinating.

[03:30] Jenifer:
That is very interesting. And that’s how you got more specifically into beer and the brewing aspect of it.

[03:37] Scott:
Yeah, that was my that was my link. And so, my, my advisor and my former advisor at, Oregon State University was Doctor Thomas Shellhammer. He’s a world leader on hop quality. And so, that’s originally what brought me to Oregon State. But at the at the time, he didn’t have enough space in the lab. So, what I do, I went and got a skill set.  And, you know, luckily, three years later, after I had that skill set, there was applicability in his lab and need, to, to, to, really explore, that raw material and, and in a more like, a molecular way. So, you know, a bit of good fortune in terms of timing is how I ended up, really into the flavor chemistry realm.

[04:20] Jenifer:
Very cool. And now you’re using your expertise here in Arkansas and this recent study that we’re going to be talking about Investigating the Malting Sustainability and Brewing Quality of Different Rice Cultivars. This was published in the Beverages Journal in February of 2024. And it’s important to note that this is relevant to us here, especially here in Arkansas,  because the state grows about half of the rice in the United States. Can you explain a little bit of, give us a summary of what your, your research found in that study specifically?

[04:54] Scott:
When I was looking at universities to … I’ve always wanted to work in brewing. I find that brewing is really a great connection of different disciplines. Right? You have chemistry, you have microbiology. You know, I’m applying this analytical chemistry to it from an analysis of the value-add and what I find really fascinating…  Like, when I was looking for potential employment in a university, it’s cool, right? A lot of different universities have brewing programs, but to have a successful one, you have to have one that’s tied to an agricultural product. That’s the success that I’ve seen. So, let’s, for example, look at North Dakota State. You have barley. With Oregon State, you have hops.  And so, you have these programs that are centered around that agricultural industry that supplies brewing, right? And so, when I was looking to apply to, to jobs, I saw this Arkansas position come up and I started to look at the crops produced here and rice was, you know, in the top three.  I was like, all right, bingo. Right. That’s a program. I know there’s a lot of potential there for me, to explore interests that I’m, you know, I want to work in brewing. I want to elevate that. And then when I started to look at rice research, you know, for whatever reason, rice research and brewing really halted somewhere around 1970.  Or at least that’s what, what I was looking at. And I just think there’s a lot of potential with the material right now. Both as a rice, as a malted quality, gluten free, malt, multigrain. And then we have, just as an adjunct, we, I see a lot of interest growing in the industry right now for adjunct style lagers, you know, traditional American double national lagers.  And we can talk a bit about what that is, but that would be like, you know, Bud, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra.

[06:52] Jenifer:
Okay. So, you mentioned rice and then malted rice. So, this study specifically was about malted rice because rice is already being used in brewing in a different way. So, the study what makes it different is the malted rice variety. Can you explain that?

[07:08] Scott:
Yeah. So, in brewing, and even now when conversations with, you know, mainstay brewers, this is a hard concept, to sort of wrap our heads around. So, in the brewing industry, you know, traditionally we brew beer with barley. Right? Barley provides a starch, starch is long chain sugar. In the brewing process, we malt the grain.  So, malting basically takes that grain, and we let the grain think it’s going to grow. In that process, the grain creates enzymes that help to break down that starch, break down a little bit of protein, and then we halt that, right? And so now in the grain basically you have a little enzymatic packet that they ship to a brewer.  The brewer then cracks that grain, mixes it with water and then, at temperatures that are optimal for those enzymatic reactions to occur. So, really when you’re creating a malt, you create little starch sort of sugar. You know, you don’t have the sugar made because the sugar is made at the brewery because those enzymes. But you have a little packet that you’re sending to the brewer.  Now, in traditional brewing, you have adjuncts. So, like rice or corn. And what we want is for the to access the starch, right? That extract. That extract we then use the barley enzymes. We have to gelatinize, which means to open up the starch, so that those enzymes can work. So, in a traditional sense, you have rice, it’s milled rice. It has no protein because there’s no bran, there’s no halt.  And you have to take that rice, boil it like you would at home to gelatinize it to open the starch. And then you would mix that with barley. The barley enzymes then break down the starch into fermentable sugars. So fermentable sugars are like, glucose, sucrose or monosaccharides. Or the main one that yeast wants to eat is maltose, which is a disaccharide.  The yeast really can assimilate anything of, you know, a dextrin larger than three units. So, you have to use those enzymes to break down the sugar into the sugar sizes that yeast can eat. So, you’ve, you know, boiled rice. You mixed it with barley, and then you, collect the wort, that sugar water.  And you feed it yeast. Now, with malted rice, we don’t need to boil it, right. We’ve created a malt like we did with barley traditionally, you know. And so now when I, when you look at the market, there’s about 9000 brewers. It’s the most, in any time point in the, in U.S. history. And so, a lot of the breweries that exist are small mom and pop shops, and they have less technical equipment, which means that they don’t have maybe a rice cooker.  So, to use rice, milled rice, they would have to add an extra vessel. But now because we’ve taken this material, we’ve malted it, we created that little enzymatic packet. They could treat it just like barley. And so, I think that’s pretty cool.

[10:25] Jenifer:
So, this would make it much easier for them in those smaller businesses you’re talking about.

[10:29] Scott:
Exactly. Yeah. So that’s, that’s one, that’s one point to this. The other point, too, when we look at the differences between barley and rice, you have a gluten free material now. And so, a lot of folks with, you know, Celiacs tend to stay away from beer because in, in, a lot of the grains that have been looked at millet, sorghum, they have pretty strong flavors. Now, rice, we’ve been using in the brewing industry because it has a fairly neutral flavor profile.  Now we see some varieties that we’re working with, they do have unique and novel flavor profiles, but some varieties are just neutral. And that’s okay. Right. It’s better than having an off note that you have to get over a remove later on.

[11:14] Jenifer:
Is this research part of a solution to, to a bigger problem? Why was there a need to look into this? Or why are you and other scientists curious to look into malted rice?

[11:25] Scott:
Right now, when you look at the industry barley is a crop that’s very susceptible to climate change. And so, we’re seeing heavy yield loss projected out into the future. And already we see barley prices have increased by about 60%. Now, when I look to rice, what we have is a tropical grain.  It can handle that heat. Now we see some quality changes here in Arkansas. We’re not devoid of problems with climate change with rice, right? For example, chalky character. You know, high nighttime temperatures are rising, and we see more of an impact of chalk. But the great thing about malted rice is you don’t need to mill it.  You wouldn’t see the internal starch structure. And so as long as that it’s not necessarily impacting negatively on the beer quality that could be a that farmers could have another avenue for this material that might, not be the greatest milled quality, but could, could still, you know, go into another industry application.

[12:29] Jenifer:
So that’s also beneficial to farmers. They have that different avenue, that different option.

[12:33] Scott:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and again, I don’t see this like I had a conversation with USA Rice two weeks back. It’s not a replacement. It’s another tool in the toolbox, right. That’s, that’s an important distinction here. We’re not doing this research to replace barley or, you know, like, cut into that industry. You know, I think this is something that can help all parties, right?  It’s just another solution. Climate change is, is, impacting the, the, you know, overall price of raw materials. And I think we just need to be prepared and have multiple solutions, to create a product that I love, right?

[13:15] Jenifer:
What about the cost compared to barley or other options that already exist? Using malted rice, does it compare to the processes that are already in place and other materials that are being used already?

[13:27] Scott:
We are working on that now. So, my student, my PhD student that’s working on this is Bernardo Guimaraes. He was the lead author on the publication. And so, he is going to generate another publication in collaboration with Doctor Lanier Nalley, and the goal of that work will be to sort of understand economic feasibility of malting rice.  And, and the goal is for that, like, you know, we see scientific validity in this, but if there’s not really, an economical validity, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. So, we need to make sure we answer that question.

[14:10] Jenifer:
And you mentioned that barley is about 60% more expensive. And so, it could eventually compare. I mean, I don’t know, we’ll have to look at the numbers in the study, but I mean, it could compare depending on how much it’s costing with the materials that are being used now.

[14:28] Scott:
Yeah. Just a point of clarification – the price of barley has increased by itself by 60%. And what we see now is that the cost of barley for malting purposes, about, is about equivalent to long grain rice. So, there’s a price, there’s a price equivalency now between long grain rice and malting barley.  And one other point to that is in the models that we’re building in these simulations, we are not necessarily taking into, or one thing that comes into this and we’re building this into the model is, how much per acreage you can yield. And so just by yield, rice yields three x more.  So, we see a little bit lower extract the amount of sugar that you can get out of this malted rice is about, in our top varieties was about 73%. But if we’re getting more per acreage on yield, that can get sort of into the equation. And these are insights, you know, coming from, you know, this collaboration with Doctor Nalley. So, I’m really excited for that work to come out soon.

[15:42] Jenifer:
Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. That’s good information. And, malted rice has been tested in other countries, correct? Is it the first time that it’s being studied to this extent here in the United States?

[15:55] Scott:
Yeah. So, the seminal work was… There’s two research groups that have looked at this in the public domain. You have a group that was in Italy, and that’s Giuseppe Perrett’s group. They were working on sort of Italian varieties. And then you have a group that was out of Technical University of Munich and they worked on a sort of a purple bran Indian variety. But this is the first time in North America, we’ve really looked at a scientific view of this.  There are some commercial maltings that do exist. So, in California, you have a small, craft malting that is called Eckert Malting. And he established that because his wife was gluten intolerant, as far as I understand. But you do have some commercial examples of rice malt here.

[16:48] Jenifer:
You mentioned the gluten free portion of it. Aside from that, or in addition to that, that is one of the big benefits to the consumer. Can you expand on that? And if there are any other benefits that this variety would be different, being all malt, gluten-free, that makes it different.

[17:05] Scott:
Yeah. So, we had chatted about it, but I think, like, as you have certain gluten free alternative grains, sorghum, millet. And if you know, folks that are out there and you’ve had beers made with those, you know what I’m talking about, that those products have certain flavor profiles. Now, the, these malted rices, I think offer a really nice flavor profile to play with.  And we just brewed with 11 of our top varieties from this study. And again, this will be some work that comes out this summer. The flavor profiles of those products was, was great. You know, we have some rice cocoa puff flavors, like, you know, kind of rice cereal, vanilla. We had some rice varieties that had purple bran.  And that purple bran, like, added a rose color to beer, and had, some nice berry notes to it. So, I just think that there’s a lot of potential to design and innovate new products. And it’s again, it’s not another tool in the chest for the brewer. Like, as brewers, we like to innovate. And this, it provides a new space to really generate premium, gluten free, products.

[18:26] Jenifer:
So you can confirm that it tastes good.

[18:28] Scott:
Oh, yeah. For sure. And, and, I think that was another important step. You know, we looked – Can this can this material perform as a malt? You know, does it have the enzymatic capacity? As a brewery we really care about extract. How much fermentable sugar can we get from that? You know, to feed yeast, that’s an important characteristic.  And it drives the efficiency in a brewery. And if that’s not, you know, comparable to barley, let’s say, it’s a problem. So, you know, scientifically, we went through all these steps and now we’re starting to follow up. And you know, look at the economics, look at the the performance in the brewery. And and, you know, we keep checking these boxes off. And so…

[19:11] Jenifer:
Okay, so the flavor box is checked off. And how are brewers receiving this information? This new research, new possibilities. What has been kind of the feedback that you have received or seen?

[19:25] Scott:
I think, you know, brewers of all sizes are interested, right? Again, you have folks that are impacted, like the industry as a whole is impacted by this existential crisis that, you know, really has an impact on, costs of raw materials. And so to be agile brewers and to, also pay homage to our local raw ingredient, right?  Particularly around the state and around the region, you know, brewers that I’ve been talking to are really interested in this idea, but, not just local. You know, I see national interest in this as well. And whether it be for an all malt, product, you know, all rice malt product or let’s say you just use this instead of adjunct, rice or milled rice, that could be another potential to, to, to use this product.  So, you don’t need to necessarily create product with 100% of this material. You could still use it with a portion, you know, let’s say 20% of your grist mill. and that could provide some flexibility. But lots of lots of interest. And again, I think like another, just to go back on one point, that local, thinking local, right?  You know, as barley, it gets harder to grow here in North America. What happens? We start to import that barley from other places from around the globe, you know, and when you think about sustainability of, of a process, we have this local starch source here that’s grown in this in this region and, you know, elevating that starch source as a premium ingredient, that, like, folks here can play with is is super important.

[21:17] Jenifer:
Are there specific types of rice that your research found works better and performs better?

[21:26] Scott:
So, we saw that in this study that long grain varieties, or some of the long grain varieties that we had, were, were performing in the ways that we needed to. So, you know, what’s great is that, again, that really highlights what’s being grown in this, you know, Arkansas, Louisiana region and, you know, that’s different than, let’s say, that, in California, where you have mid and, short game varieties.

[21:53] Jenifer:
You highlighted a lot of the benefits of this research and what it has shown to farmers, to the local economy, to brewers, to the consumer as well, and having different options, with the science, portion of it, as you said, there are other steps now, the economics and moving forward with other things. What were some of the challenges you guys had during the research process?  What was that process like? How long does it take to study something like this? And what were some of the challenges that you found throughout that process?

[22:29] Scott:
So, this work, you know, before I took this position here at Arkansas, I was at the VLB in Berlin. And that’s a teaching and research brewery that was started, you know, pre-World War One. And I was on a Von Humboldt fellowship there and researching beer flavor stability. And what they have there is the facilities to do pilot malting.  So, they can malt about a kilogram of material. So, a very small amount. And we didn’t have that, that, that ability to do that here. So, what was great is we set up a collaboration to do that with them. So, we have an international collaboration that started right off the bat. Here at the university, they have also been really great partners.  We have a guest researcher here already from the VLB who’s in the lab and working on this project and others. But really, it’s, it’s setting that team up. It’s building those collaborations. Now, the next steps are to. That was on a kilogram size, you know, a couple pounds. What we want to do is take this to 100 pounds.  Can this perform in a commercial facility? What are the challenges with that? And that’s both on the malting side, as well as on the brewing side. So, now we’re working, to get some grant funding or some industry funding to really take this to the next level. And we need hundreds of pounds of this material so we can get it into professional brewers’ hands.  You know, we see it working here on our little pilot system. But let’s get it into, you know, professional brewers’ hands, at the local and national level. And let’s see if this material plays. And so that’s sort of the, the challenges that we’re working through now and the partnerships that we’re building.

[24:18] Jenifer:
It’s figuring out can we translate this into a bigger scale.

[24:21] Scott:
Yeah, exactly. And really that takes hundreds of pounds of material. It can’t you can’t do that with just, you know, 10 pounds.

[24:30] Jenifer:
Yeah. Very cool. You light up when you talk about this. You talked about brewing, like, you know, it’s a passion. And what does it feel like and how exciting is it for you to be a part of this research and really at the forefront of this research here in the United States and here in Arkansas? Tell me a little bit about that and that, that personal, involvement in something like this that is going to be so big in the future as we learn more about it and be, you know, involved in this research firsthand?

[25:04] Scott:
I, I just, brewing is, has provided a lot of insights to me and to how science should be performed. You know, in my PhD, I was on farms. I was, I was with hop farmers. And, you know, that farm to value add is, is critical and it’s critical to the success of that brewing industry. And so that taught and like laid the foundation for me and like really the care of the raw material quality and how that impacts the value add. I learned that very early on, you know, I’m fortunate to have learned that so early on in my career because, you know, that that basically that farm to table or  that green to glass mentality, like, really matters and had been involved in product, in projects where we, you know, look at how to grow the raw material in certain ways and how that impacts quality. Or how we can… now we’re in that processing facility, we’re in the brewery. How do we … we have a certain quality of raw material,  how do we change that? How do we, like leverage the quality that we have to get, you know, the quality of the value add, at the end of the day that we want. And so, you know, different… I’ve been taught to look at, you know, problems, through different lenses because of my interaction and involvement with partners in the brewing industry.  And so very fortunate for that, because really shaped the way that I think about problems.

[26:33] Jenifer:
Very cool. Yeah. This is all very exciting. And, this research, as you said, is just a one step. There are many other steps that you still have to go through. One of them is the economic feasibility of everything. Before we started talking, you mentioned an international trip. Is it a convention that is going to be, there’s going to be a presentation about the research?  Can you explain to us what that is about? And then, next steps for this research and moving forward.

[27:01] Scott:
Yeah, so we have two, conferences this year. One is the European Brewing Congress, and that’s happening in Lille, France at the end of May. Bernardo, my student and I, will be headed out there. Bernardo, was, he’s got an oral presentation and a, like, alternative grains session. So, really excited to share this work with European brewers. And that Congress really brings brewers across Europe, to, to, to that location.  And then, at the end of August, we will be, participating in the World Brewing Congress. And so, we’ll be bringing the research down there. And that Congress is a culmination of… It happens every four years, but because of Covid, it hasn’t happened in eight years. And so that is the European Brewing Congress.  It’s the American Society of Brewing Chemists. It’s the Japanese brewers and the Chinese brewers, as well. So, it’s a world stage. and we meet, together, down there. And so really excited to get to share not only this, but a lot of, research topics that we have going on. And we talked a lot about brewing beer, and I think an an important facet…  and like a lot of research that we’re interested in, are interested in right now is non-alcoholic products and how to improve the quality of that, because we see a lot of market growth in that. And one issue in those products is barley flavor. You know, barley is a green with a lot of flavor. But again, the neutrality of rice plays, and we can see some benefits in the design of those nonalcoholic products with, with rice, as well.  So, you know, this malted rice is one way that one thing, that we’re looking at in rice. But we see a lot of opportunities with rice, as well.

[28:58] Jenifer:
It sounds like it a lot of, yeah, different options, opportunities and, solutions and just a lot of benefits from it.

[29:06] Scott:
Yeah. And again, I think like, as we still, like, continue to develop, there’s so much potential in this area and the ceiling is so high, with the program and where we’re headed to.

[29:22] Jenifer:
Absolutely. I like that you mentioned small businesses. We have seen so many, local breweries popping up in smaller towns. And I think that’s really interesting to bring in that, that aspect of it that, you know, local businesses could also benefit from something like this.

[29:39] Scott:
Yeah. And in, so, I wasn’t able to go to the Craft Brewers Conference this year, but I heard some, some of the messaging that was going on from, from, that conference. And for those that are unaware of that conference, it’s hosted by the Brewers Association, the largest trade group for craft brewers, and it’s one of the largest trade conferences in brewing annually.  And so, one of the one of the key messages that I’ve heard was out of that was diversification, right? And one way that we diversify as business is, and, and one thing that I think when I look for products is that honoring of locality, right? And, you know, when I talk with brewers again, their eyes light up because this offers them another opportunity to leverage their local agricultural product.  And, and again, I see just trends right now. I see adjunct lagers trending. And so just even just as a milled product, I think that there’s going to be a lot of interest in embracing the future. And, you know, the flavor profile … like I love adjunct style lagers. A lot of my favorite beers are that. So, you know, that’s a good thing.

[30:58] Jenifer:
Yeah. Very cool. This is all very exciting. Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you think is important to share?

[31:06] Scott:
Yeah. So, one of the other things that we have is a training program here. It’s a brewing certificate program. That, the structure of that, was created before I got here. So, there’s a lot of individuals that led to a really successful program, but I’ve been able to help to develop that even further as a certificate program now over the past year.  And what’s really neat about that program is it’s a three-college program here. So, College of Engineering, College of Fulbright, which is, you know, chemistry, biology, and then, Bumpers College of Ag, and that’s food science where I sit, and where we house the BREWCP. And so, we have advisory boards members in each of those colleges and the brewing science course, which is the theory course that I teach, as well as the beer production and analysis, you know, the actual hands on, beer production now in the brewery that we’ve built. It’s really interesting,  interesting to interact with the students because we have students that are engineering students. And it’s this, we have students that are food science students, students that are biology students. We have this cross-disciplinary, coursework that I’m getting to be a part of. And, you know, it’s, it was, the past year. It’s been really fun to see and interact with the students in these different disciplines and, and to get that to see that here.  And that’s unique to Arkansas. Most of the time, these brewing science programs, or the brewing programs are in one discipline. And you might have some interest from other departments. But the fact that that was built up here, in that, in that, in those different disciplines, I think, I’m excited to see and, and to continue to grow that program and, you know, train the brewers of the future, right?

[32:49] Jenifer:
Very cool. Scott, if people are interested in getting in touch with you or just to keep up with any of your updates, are you active on socials? What is the best way to, to stay updated?

[33:01] Scott:
So I tend to, I really like LinkedIn as it’s the only social account that I’m really successful. I have a Twitter, but not a big following, but I tend to post, either I post monthly, at least on LinkedIn. So if you follow me, you know, you’re not going to get hit up a bunch.  But I try and at least make sure we get some content out monthly on LinkedIn. And that, that would still also be Twitter. So, those are the two most active, I would say.

[33:35] Jenifer:
Okay. Very cool. So, you can find Scott Lafontaine on LinkedIn or Twitter to stay up to date with your research or if they have any questions. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing all of that great knowledge with us.

[33:47] Scott:
It’s a pleasure. Anytime.

[33:49] Jenifer:
That was Scott Lafontaine, flavor chemist and assistant professor in the food science department, talking about the study titled Investigating the Malting Sustainability and Brewing Quality of Different Rice Cultivars. To learn more, visit our website aaes.uada.edu and be sure to subscribe to Arkansas Food, Farms and Forests Podcast. Thanks for listening.

[34:16] Outro:
The Arkansas Food, Farms and Forests Podcast is produced by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Visit aaes.uada.edu for more information.