Sorghum Malt Quality Data: The USDA Madison Screening
This dataset supports: Cultivars for Malting and K-State Results — the narrative pages that interpret it.
This page is deliberately a data page. If you want the narrative — which cultivars won, and how our flavor-first doctrine reads these numbers differently than an enzyme-first maltster would — that lives on Cultivars for Malting. This page is the record itself.
Methods, briefly
Twenty-five sorghum samples (60 g dry basis each) were malted on a Joe White micro-malting system at the USDA-ARS Cereal Crops Research Unit, using a schedule developed with Bard's input: a 26-hour steep (8h wet / 1h air / 8h wet / 1h air / 8h wet) at 24°C, germination at 24°C with spray-watering to 41% moisture, and kilning through five stages to an 85°C finish. Half the samples were kilned after 72 hours of germination, half after 96 — which is why every cultivar appears twice below. Analyses used the lab's standard barley malt methods, with enzyme extracts run at four times barley concentration to register sorghum's lower activity. Samples were not chitted at steep-out, at moisture in the mid-30% range (wet basis) — consistent with the steep-out targets on Steeping Sorghum.
Modification target: 1:1 shoot-to-grain length with roughly 1-inch rootlets, reached by 72 hours. The 96-hour samples modified further but at malting losses the report judged too great to warrant — you can watch that trade-off happen in the numbers below (extract generally rises at 4 days; so do losses).
How to read this through our doctrine
The screening was scored the conventional way: diastatic power first. We malt for taste, not enzymes — and to solve the problems that decide whether a sorghum beer is drinkable, like wort turbidity and year-to-year crop variation. Read through that lens, wort clarity and color columns matter as much as the DP column, and a modest-DP cultivar with a clean wort can be the better brewing pick. Both readings are valid; they optimize for different processes. Ours assigns conversion to external enzymes and asks the malt to be good malt.
The dataset
Wort clarity is scored 1 (clear) to 3 (hazy); color is °SRM-scale lab color. All percentages dry basis.
3 day germination
| Cultivar | Extract % (d.b.) | DP (ASBC) | α-amylase (DU) | FAN (ppm) | Malted protein % (d.b.) | S/T % | Wort clarity (1=clear) | Wort color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer 8282 | 47.3 | 45.7 | 63.1 | 76 | 9.2 | 19.4 | 1 | 1.87 |
| Pioneer 82G63 | 50.4 | 30.4 | 67.6 | 86 | 8.7 | 21.8 | 1 | 1.92 |
| Pioneer 83G66 | 51.7 | 34.5 | 68.0 | 78 | 9.0 | 19.5 | 1 | 2.07 |
| Pioneer 8313 | 42.5 | 27.4 | 59.0 | 77 | 9.1 | 19.5 | 1 | 1.77 |
| Pioneer 84G62 | 50.2 | 29.4 | 62.1 | 68 | 8.6 | 19.1 | 1 | 1.84 |
| Pioneer 8500 | 48.6 | 31.4 | 50.5 | 71 | 11.7 | 14.2 | 2 | 2.14 |
| Pioneer 8505 | 49.5 | 32.5 | 59.3 | 87 | 10.7 | 17.0 | 2 | 2.13 |
| Pioneer 85G85 | 48.9 | 21.3 | 55.8 | 66 | 9.8 | 16.7 | 2 | 2.27 |
| Pioneer 8699 | 42.3 | 33.4 | 52.6 | 75 | 11.6 | 14.7 | 1 | 1.99 |
| Pioneer 86G71 | 43.3 | 35.6 | 56.4 | 73 | 12.2 | 13.8 | 1 | 2.16 |
| Pioneer 87G57 | 38.7 | 25.4 | 62.4 | 108 | 12.4 | 15.7 | 2 | 2.34 |
| Pioneer 8925 | 31.6 | 39.4 | 62.7 | 119 | 14.3 | 15.6 | 1 | 2.24 |
| Pioneer 84Y00 | 55.6 | 34.4 | 65.9 | 84 | 8.9 | 20.1 | 1 | 2.08 |
| Pioneer 85Y34 | 52.6 | 35.3 | 77.6 | 84 | 10.7 | 17.9 | 1 | 1.91 |
| Jowar 1 | 54.5 | 27.3 | 57.9 | 90 | 10.6 | 17.2 | 1 | 1.95 |
| Nct 7w92 | 57.5 | 19.2 | 48.0 | 85 | 11.2 | 15.1 | 2 | 2.48 |
| Aggrow Eclipse | 58.4 | 30.3 | 78.7 | 103 | 11.5 | 17.6 | 2 | 2.25 |
| Orbit | 58.1 | 32.3 | 86.2 | 106 | 12.2 | 16.8 | 2 | 2.31 |
| Fontanelle W1000 | 57.7 | 28.3 | 62.5 | 93 | 11.5 | 15.8 | 2 | 2.42 |
| Pioneer 84100 | 58.2 | 35.3 | 82.6 | 101 | 11.1 | 18.0 | 1 | 2.81 |
| Dk44-41 | 56.6 | 29.3 | 79.6 | 102 | 12.0 | 17.0 | 1 | 2.17 |
| NC 7W51 | 61.1 | 22.3 | 54.8 | 86 | 11.3 | 15.7 | 1 | 3.84 |
| Producers 79 | 61.0 | 26.3 | 61.8 | 107 | 10.9 | 16.5 | 2 | 1.97 |
| x 828 | 67.8 | 34.4 | 84.6 | 102 | 10.9 | 18.2 | 3 | 5.49 |
| Fontanelle 5040c | 61.7 | 33.3 | 80.0 | 109 | 11.5 | 18.0 | 1 | 2.37 |
4 day germination
| Cultivar | Extract % (d.b.) | DP (ASBC) | α-amylase (DU) | FAN (ppm) | Malted protein % (d.b.) | S/T % | Wort clarity (1=clear) | Wort color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer 8282 | 60.2 | 30.6 | 90.2 | 79 | 9.3 | 18.5 | 1 | 2.38 |
| Pioneer 82G63 | 56.0 | 34.5 | 109.4 | 99 | 9.0 | 21.3 | 1 | 2.11 |
| Pioneer 83G66 | 50.2 | 31.5 | 80.4 | 78 | 8.5 | 19.4 | 1 | 2.40 |
| Pioneer 8313 | 49.0 | 21.4 | 62.4 | 59 | 9.3 | 15.4 | 1 | 2.04 |
| Pioneer 84G62 | 57.9 | 29.5 | 78.0 | 70 | 9.0 | 17.3 | 1 | 2.03 |
| Pioneer 8500 | 56.6 | 30.0 | 62.6 | 83 | 11.9 | 14.6 | 1 | 2.29 |
| Pioneer 8505 | 59.5 | 28.9 | 74.2 | 92 | 10.9 | 16.6 | 1 | 2.71 |
| Pioneer 85G85 | 55.7 | 19.7 | 60.0 | 69 | 10.2 | 15.5 | 1 | 2.53 |
| Pioneer 8699 | 52.4 | 32.0 | 83.7 | 94 | 11.5 | 16.1 | 1 | 2.69 |
| Pioneer 86G71 | 44.7 | 24.8 | 59.7 | 64 | 12.3 | 13.7 | 1 | 2.61 |
| Pioneer 87G57 | 46.3 | 27.8 | 80.4 | 100 | 12.4 | 16.2 | 1 | 2.72 |
| Pioneer 8925 | 30.6 | 40.1 | 86.8 | 140 | 15.0 | 16.5 | 1 | 3.12 |
| Pioneer 84Y00 | 55.8 | 30.9 | 75.5 | 70 | 9.3 | 18.8 | 1 | 2.46 |
| Pioneer 85Y34 | 53.8 | 36.0 | 97.8 | 104 | 11.0 | 19.7 | 1 | 2.44 |
| Jowar 1 | 63.7 | 33.1 | 93.2 | 107 | 11.4 | 17.5 | 2 | 2.27 |
| Nct 7w92 | 56.5 | 22.7 | 63.8 | 100 | 11.6 | 16.8 | 3 | 3.67 |
| Aggrow Eclipse | 63.8 | 32.8 | 100.2 | 122 | 11.7 | 19.6 | 1 | 2.30 |
| Orbit | 64.7 | 34.9 | 100.1 | 127 | 11.5 | 20.4 | 1 | 1.93 |
| Fontanelle W1000 | 62.3 | 29.9 | 95.1 | 121 | 11.4 | 18.2 | 3 | 3.56 |
| Pioneer 84100 | 65.5 | 38.1 | 96.2 | 105 | 11.2 | 19.6 | 1 | 3.26 |
| Dk44-41 | 65.9 | 32.9 | 96.7 | 134 | 11.4 | 19.7 | 2 | 2.91 |
| NC 7W51 | 58.3 | 30.0 | 86.5 | 111 | 11.1 | 18.0 | 3 | 3.89 |
| Producers 79 | 51.4 | 25.7 | 70.2 | 119 | 10.9 | 18.8 | 3 | 2.92 |
| x 828 | 66.1 | 37.1 | 119.9 | 123 | 11.3 | 19.6 | 3 | 3.36 |
| Fontanelle 5040c | 59.7 | 31.7 | 96.3 | 124 | 11.4 | 20.1 | 1 | 2.76 |
Range summary
| Measure | 3-day range | 4-day range |
|---|---|---|
| Extract % (d.b.) | 31.6 – 67.8 | 30.6 – 66.1 |
| Diastatic power (ASBC) | 19.2 – 45.7 | 19.7 – 40.1 |
| α-amylase (DU) | 48.0 – 86.2 | 59.7 – 119.9 |
| FAN (ppm) | 66 – 119 | 59 – 140 |
For context: barley malt typically runs extract near 80%, DP near 100–140 ASBC, and FAN near 140–200 ppm. Sorghum FAN at roughly half of barley's is exactly why yeast nutrition is a first-class concern in sorghum brewing, and why the DP numbers here support the external-enzyme doctrine rather than challenge it.
Cross-links in the published record
Two of these cultivars — Pioneer 82G63 and 83G66 — also appear in the Kansas State four-hybrid brewing study on K-State Results. Independent programs testing shared materials is how a young research field builds confidence; the alignment reading lives on Cultivars for Malting.
Download the dataset
→ Download the full dataset as CSV — all 50 rows (25 cultivars × 2 germination lengths) at full precision, including the moisture and soluble-protein columns the display tables above omit for readability.
How to cite this dataset
Budde, A. & Martens, C. Micro-malting and Analysis of Sorghum Varieties. USDA-ARS Cereal Crops Research Unit, Madison, WI. Dataset republished by Gluten Free Brewer, 2026. https://glutenfreebrewer.com/research/cultivar-data/usda-madison-screening
This dataset is published for reuse with attribution. Cite the USDA-ARS unit as the originating laboratory and this page as the published source; if your work builds on it, we would genuinely like to hear about it.
Use this data
This dataset is published for exactly one reason: almost nobody has done this work in North America, and whoever does it next shouldn't start from zero. If you're malting sorghum — commercially, academically, or in a garage — these numbers are a calibration point for your own. The report's own caveat travels with them: the same lines grown in other locations or under other nutrient regimes would likely score differently. If you generate comparable data, we want to see it — and the active breeding work at the University of Nevada, Reno shows where this field is heading next.
Related Pages
- Cultivars for Malting
- K-State Results
- Malt Quality Lab Research and Results
- From Ivory 7 to Blue Milo #4
- Why Native Malt Enzymes Are Not Enough
Source and Validation Notes
Data from the micro-malting and analysis program conducted at the USDA-ARS Cereal Crops Research Unit (Madison, Wisconsin) on samples and scheduling developed with Bard's input; values transcribed programmatically from the original analysis tables and rounded for display (extract, DP, alpha, protein, S/T to one decimal; FAN to whole ppm; color to two decimals). One cultivar name from Bard's later production history — Blue Milo #4 — is withheld elsewhere on this site under a seed agreement; all names on this page are as recorded in the original tables.