Proposed: Sorghum Seed Data Profiles (GFB-SDP, draft v0.2)
Status: proposed, draft v0.2, never ratified by anyone. This page is a view on the malting sorghum properties master list — 104 properties, each with its method and source. No figure appears here that is not in that list.
The five profiles
| Profile | Who produces it | The question it answers | Properties | Of those, unique to it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field | Breeder, seed lab | What should I breed toward? | 27 | 16 |
| Gate | Elevator, seed lab | Do I buy this lot? | 35 | 21 |
| Lab | Grain / feed laboratory | What is this grain made of? | 35 | 26 |
| Malting | Maltster | Does this grain malt? | 25 | 10 |
| Wort | Brewer | Does this malt brew? | 8 | 5 |
These are not tiers. No profile is a subset of another, and none is a more rigorous version of another. They are five different jobs.
Why the lists barely overlap
78 of 104 properties sit in exactly one profile. Every overlap that exists:
| Shared properties | |
|---|---|
| Gate ∩ Malting | 7 |
| Gate ∩ Field | 7 |
| Lab ∩ Malting | 5 |
| Lab ∩ Field | 4 |
| Malting ∩ Wort | 3 |
| Field ∩ Wort | 0 |
| Lab ∩ Wort | 0 |
| Gate ∩ Wort | 0 |
A breeder and a brewer share nothing. Not one property in 104. The brewer's five — turbidity, colour, pH, viscosity, flavour — reach the breeder only through the maltster, and the maltster shares just three of them.
That is the whole argument of this page. A research dataset is not a better malting dataset. A full field trial and a complete laboratory panel together produce zero of the brewer's five measures and zero of the maltster's ten.
What each profile is for
Every property below carries a range and a basis. The basis matters as much as the number:
| Basis | Means |
|---|---|
| Published | A cited threshold or measured range from an external standard or study |
| Ours | Measured in our own datasets |
| Species | A typical range for sorghum from the literature, not a specification |
| Proposed | Our own proposal, not yet backed by a distribution |
| Proxy | No sorghum-malt figure found, so the nearest real measurement stands in — a different species, a different grain state, or a different property. Always labelled with what it actually covers |
Gate — properties that decide a purchase
| Property | Recommended range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Test weight | Ours: ≥ 56 lb/bu, reject below 54 — Bard's grain-purchase specification, which bought real grain across multiple crop years [39] [40]. Published grades: ≥ 57.0 lb/bu (US No.1), ≥ 71.0 kg/hl (GTA SOR1, EAS Gr 1). Our own gate sits a pound below US No.1 and adds a rejection floor the grades do not | Ours [39] [40] + Published [1] [2] [3] |
| Moisture at receipt | Ours: 14%, with a discount schedule above it and rejection above 15.5% [42]. Published grades: ≤ 13.0% (EAS), ≤ 13.5% (GTA). Our gate is the loosest of the three and prices the difference instead of refusing it | Ours [42] + Published [2] [3] |
| Germination | Ours: contractual floor ≥ 85% within 3 days, target 90%, premium at 92% — Bard's purchase specification [39]. No US or GTA grade requires germination at all, which is why a malting buyer cannot rely on grade alone | Ours [39] |
| Germinative energy · water sensitivity | Germinative energy 82.53%, germinative capacity 90.50%, water sensitivity 1.12% on one Nigerian brewing malt [32]; a malting-cultivar trial reports GE ≥ 90% at three of five localities and below it at two [29]. The method is the open question, not the number — GE and water sensitivity are barley tests (ASBC Barley-3C, EBC 3.6.1–3.6.3) applied to sorghum rather than written for it, so a figure is only comparable against another run the same way | Published [29] [32] |
| Screenings, through 2.0 mm | ≤ 11.0% (GTA SOR1, EAS Gr 1); ≤ 25% at Grade 2 | Published [2] [3] |
| Foreign material | Ours: ≤ 1% [43] — the same number as US No.1. Published: ≤ 2.0% (GTA SOR1, EAS Gr 1) | Ours [43] + Published [1] |
| Total defective / damaged | Ours: ≤ 2% damaged kernels [43], matching US No.1. Published: ≤ 5.0% (GTA SOR1, EAS Gr 1) | Ours [43] + Published [1] |
| Heat-damaged kernels | ≤ 0.2% (US No.1) | Published [1] |
| Mould, graded | ≤ 0.05% by weight per half litre (GTA SOR1) | Published [3] |
| Sprouted grain | ≤ 3.0% (GTA SOR1) — counted outside total defective | Published [3] |
| Field fungi | ≤ 3.0% (GTA SOR1); ≤ 5.0% (EAS Gr 1) | Published [2] [3] |
| Weather-stained | ≤ 5.0% (EAS Gr 1) | Published [2] |
| Total admixture | ≤ 11.0% (EAS Gr 1) | Published [2] |
| Trash | ≤ 5.0% (EAS Gr 1) | Published [2] |
| Foreign seed contaminants | Type 1 ≤ 8, Type 2 Nil, Type 3a ≤ 2, 3b ≤ 4, Type 4 ≤ 20, Type 5 ≤ 40 per half litre | Published [3] |
| Crude protein, minimum | Ours, measured: 7.59–11.9% across four of our own datasets [24] [25] [26] — every lot we hold clears the EAS floor of ≥ 7.0%, the lowest by half a point. A minimum this low does not discriminate between malting lots | Ours [24] [25] [26] + Published [2] |
| Harvest moisture | below 12% | Published [5] |
| Broken kernels + foreign material | ≤ 3.0% (US No.1) | Published [1] |
| Kernel assortment (the sizing pair) | Ours: 15.2 · 51.4 · 23.6 · 9.8% over 7/64 · 6/64 · 5/64 · through, barley slotted screens run on sorghum malt [24]. No sorghum grading standard defines a plump/thins pair — 7 CFR and GTA define only broken kernels and screenings. The measurement exists in practice; the grade does not | Ours [24] |
| Kernel size uniformity | Ours: 51.4% on the single 6/64 screen, 90.2% across the top three [24]. Published: ≥ 70% of kernels above 3.15 mm, TKW ≥ 20 g, SA malting-cultivar trial [29] — that report names sieves of 2.36 / 3.25 / 3.36 / 4.00 mm and then reports against 3.15 mm, which is none of them. Recorded, not resolved | Ours [24] + Published [29] |
| Kernel size, single kernel | Diameter 1.78–2.23 mm, weight 19.3–27.0 mg across four hybrids, n=300 kernels each, SKCS 4100; malting shrinks both to 1.6–2.0 mm and 16.1–22.7 mg [47]. Comparator weight bands: 15.5–38 mg and a mean 26.3 mg. A shape ratio or sphericity band is still not held — the figures circulating for it could not be opened at source | Published [47] |
| Dormancy / post-harvest rest | The official answer is chill it, not wait. The AOSA Rules give grain sorghum a 5-day prechill at 5 or 10 °C, germination at 20–30 °C, first count day 4, final count day 7 — and exempt grain crops from dormancy criteria outright, on the grounds that their dormancy is short-lived [78]. The phrase "dry storage" does not appear anywhere in the volume. Informally, sorghum seed is said not to germinate "for a month or so after harvesting" [79] — hedged, uncited, and from a survey compendium rather than a measurement. The wild relatives are the ones with real dormancy: 3 months' dry storage lifts germination 45.9% → 57.6% across 20 accessions of seven wild species [67], and S. halepense gets a different AOSA prescription entirely | Published [78] [79] |
Lab — properties you pay an analytical laboratory for
| Property | Recommended range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Total starch | 65–75% d.b. species-typical, assay not stated by the source | Species [4] |
| Amylose | 20–30% of starch (normal); 0–15% waxy and heterowaxy — waxy 0%, heterowaxy 14.0%, normal 23.7% | Species [6] |
| Amylopectin | 70–80% (normal); 87.9–94.1% (waxy lines); 75.6–85.4% (non-waxy and heterowaxy) | Species [6] |
| Crude protein | Ours, measured: 8.69% and 11.9% (Midwest grain) [26]; 8.7 · 9.5 · 11.8% (Hartwick malt) [25]; 10.8% and 7.59% (2010) [24]; 8.8–18.2% across 74 screened entries [44]. Proposed target 9–12%, ideal 9–10.5% under Profile A [4]. The screened spread is more than twice the target window — cultivar choice moves protein further than any gate does | Ours [24] [25] [26] [44] + Proposed [4] |
| Crude fat | ≤ 3% under Profile A | Proposed [4] |
| Gelatinisation temperature | Not a conflict — two points on the same climb. 61.75–65.51 °C is the DSC onset, where gelatinisation begins [7]; the 68–76 °C figure [5] and the wider 68–81 °C band across sources and methods [68] describe where it substantially completes. Design for the full climb, not a single number — sorghum has the highest onset of any grain we work with, which is why the process leans on liquefaction and external-enzyme staging rather than native conversion | Published — resolved [7] [68] |
| Kernel density | True 1.46 g/cm3; apparent 1.32 g/cm3 | Published [8] |
| Hardness, flotation method | Sodium nitrate solution at 1.315 g/mL, 25 °C | Published [9] |
| Beta-glucan | Ours: 0.0–3.3 mg/L in wort across three malts, ASBC methods [45] — a wort basis, not a grain basis; it supplements the grain figure rather than replacing it. Published: 0.298–0.376% raw grain, falling to 0.187% in malt [10]. Both say the same thing — sorghum does not carry barley's beta-glucan problem | Ours [45] + Published [10] |
| Tannin | ≤ 0.5% by ISO 9648 | Published [2] [11] |
| DON | Ours: ≤ 0.5 ppm specified; not detected on three FGIS-certificated samples [46] | Ours [46] |
| Aflatoxin | Ours: ≤ 5.0 ppb specified; not detected on the same three samples [46]. Published: total ≤ 10 µg/kg, B1 ≤ 5 µg/kg (EAS) | Ours [46] + Published [2] |
| Fumonisin | Ours, measured: at or below 1 ppm on three samples [46] — but our own 13-point purchase specification set no fumonisin limit at all, a real coverage gap. Published: 2–5 ppm by grade (EAS) | Ours [46] + Published [2] |
| Microbiological | Yeasts and moulds 10^4/g; Salmonella not detectable in 25 g; E. coli not detectable per g | Published [2] |
| Ash | Ours: 1.03% and 1.53%, two Midwest 2019 grain lots [26] | Ours [26] |
| Fibre (ADF) | Ours: 3.6% and 5.4%, two Midwest 2019 grain lots [26]. This is ADF, not crude fibre — the three fibre measures are not interchangeable and must not be compared across methods | Ours [26] |
| Kafirin fractions | Kafirins are 48–84% of total grain protein. Two datasets that do not agree on the split: measured, γ 25.1 · α1 26.7 · α2 17.2 · β 31.0% (low-kafirin) and γ 21.4 · α1 22.3 · α2 18.6 · β 37.7% (high-kafirin) [48]; against the textbook position that α alone is about 80% of total kafirin [49]. α at ~80% versus α1+α2 at ~44% is a factor-of-two disagreement — unresolved | Published — conflicting [48] [49] |
| Fatty acid profile | Linoleic 49 · oleic 31 · palmitic 14 · linolenic 2.7 · stearic 2.1% [50]; against linoleic 43.33 · oleic 37.15 · palmitic 13.73 · stearic 1.07 · linolenic 1.55% by GC-FID [51]. Oleic and linoleic swap rank between the two. Lipid classes: neutral 86.2 · phospholipid 10.7 · glycolipid 3.1% [50] | Published — conflicting [50] [51] |
| Total phenolics | 0.14–0.18% in raw grain, rising to 0.15–0.29% through malting across three cultivars and nine steep/germination combinations [52]. By pericarp colour on a GAE basis: white 0.24–34.78, red 0.66–47.86, black 4.13–11.50 mg GAE/g [53]. The two scales are twenty-fold apart at the top and neither states one common method — the same comparability failure this page flags for starch | Published — method-incompatible [52] [53] |
| Limit dextrinase | 1.0–1.4 EU/g in sorghum malt against barley 0.2–0.4, maize 0.3–0.5 and rice 3.3–6.0 [71]. Sorghum carries several times barley's limit dextrinase — and the sampled malt had low germination, so the figure may understate. EU is defined as the enzyme releasing 1 µmol glucose equivalent per minute at 40 °C, pH 5.0–5.5. A separate three-cultivar study reports 1.51–3.10 U/µg [72], but those are response-surface optimised maxima, each under its own extraction conditions and not comparable with one another, and its unit is undefined in the record available to us | Published [71] [72] |
| Protease activity | Relative, not absolute. Malting raises proteinase 2-4x and carboxypeptidase 4-9x over resting grain, both cultivar-dependent [54] [76] - reported at second hand; the source tables sit behind a publisher wall and were not read. Proteinase peaks at 4 days and is unmoved by steeping, by germination temperature across 24-32 °C, or by moisture; carboxypeptidase rises far more steeply to the same 4 days and responds to both [76]. No absolute range in enzyme units was found, searched 2026-09-15 , and the most comprehensive comparative enzyme table in this literature carries no protease row either - it substitutes a 36% Kolbach Index [71], which is modification, not activity. Read the substrate before any sorghum protease number: the purpose-built assay uses purified kafirin [54]; casein-based assays disagree with it on direction | Relative [54] [76] + proxy [71] |
| Pericarp thickness | 43 ± 6 µm (RTx430) against 74 ± 14 µm (BTx2928), non-destructive optical coherence microscopy at 3 µm lateral resolution; the two lines separate cleanly at 53 µm [56]. The species band of 8–160 µm widely attributed to Earp and Rooney is not in this paper and could not be opened at source — excluded | Published [56] |
| Endosperm : germ : pericarp | 84 : 10 : 6% (Hubbard, Hall and Earle, via FAO) [30]; 80 : 10 : 8% (Rooney); 82.3 : 9.8 : 7.9% by hand dissection [47]. Three published splits, none agreeing, all noting genotype and environment move them | Published — conflicting [30] [47] |
| Milling energy | Grain 44.9–98.4 J/g; malt 18.0–32.2 J/g, 23 cultivars, Comparamill [12]. Only the malt figure predicts anything — grain milling energy showed no significant correlation with extract; malt milling energy correlated with extract (r = −0.75 with two nitrogen outliers removed) and diastatic power (r = −0.78) | Published [12] |
| Pesticide residues | Closed 2026-09-15. Codex carries 25 limits for sorghum grain (GC 0651), spanning 0.01–10 mg/kg [69] — highest azoxystrobin 10, dicamba 4, malathion 3 mg/kg. The three that matter for malting are the stored-grain protectants, and two of them are US-only by name: pirimiphos-methyl 8.0 ppm, malathion 8 ppm postharvest, sulfuryl fluoride 0.1 ppm postharvest [70]. Malathion is Codex 3 mg/kg against EPA 8 ppm — the same compound on the same grain, 2.7× apart by jurisdiction. Codex sets no glyphosate limit for sorghum grain at all, while EPA permits 30 ppm through cereal Crop Group 15 — which matters because sorghum is desiccated pre-harvest. No residue survey of sorghum grain was found; these are limits, not measurements | Published [69] [70] |
| Gluten result | Non-detect, method stated | Proposed [4] |
Malting — properties that require a steep tank
| Property | Recommended range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Steep-out moisture | Ours: 33–36% wet basis at first chit, which is 52–58% on a dry basis — the steeping page warns the two bases sit twenty points apart [28]. Published measured values: 38% at a 50 h optimum and 39.77% elsewhere in the same work [32]. State the basis or the number is meaningless — a wet-basis and a dry-basis figure for the same grain differ by about twenty points | Ours [28] + Published [32] |
| Germination moisture, held | Ours: about 41% wet basis, sprayed at the 8-hour checks [27]. Published: moisture falls from 39.77% at steep-out to 37.93% through germination if it is not replaced [32] — which is the reason we spray | Ours [27] + Published [32] |
| Malting loss | 18–28% at 96 h, tolerate about 20% [5]; 14.89–19.57% at 72 h [14] | Published |
| Germination temperature | Ours: 82 °F / 28 °C target, never above 86 °F / 30 °C [27] — above that, microbial pressure and uneven growth climb fast. Published: 24 °C is the measured beta-amylase optimum across 24–32 °C [15]. Our bed runs hotter than the enzyme optimum, bounded by the microbial ceiling rather than by enzyme yield | Ours [27] + Published [15] |
| Kiln finish | Ours: a five-stage kiln, about 22 h plus 30-minute ramps — 40 °C/10 h, 54 °C/4 h, 60 °C/3 h, 68 °C/2 h, 85 °C/3 h [38]. The sorghum-malting literature generally caps the kiln near 50 °C to protect diastatic power. Opposite answers because the jobs differ: a malt that must convert its own mash protects its enzymes; a malt converted by external enzymes is free to run hot for colour, flavour and stability | Ours [38] |
| Acrospire : grain length | 1:1 at endpoint, reached about 72 h on the Madison bench schedule [18]. Bard's production endpoint is qualitative — acrospire at roughly full kernel length, 4–5 days, about 3 days on a small aerated unit, and it overshoots by as much as ±50% of kernel length late in germination [27]. Read the grain, not the clock | Ours [18] [27] [16] |
| Cold water extract | 6.40–21.04 g/100 g | Published [17] |
| Diastatic power | 19.2–45.7 °ASBC [18]; ≥ 22 °DP/g d.b. as one published brewing threshold [19]; in SDU, an optimisation study reports sorghum malt across 20–60 SDU/g, its own trial malts at 40.17 and an optimised target of 42.2 — malt for pito, where the malt does the converting [81] | Ours + Published |
| Alpha-amylase | 48.0–119.9 DU across two germination lengths | Ours [18] |
| Beta-amylase | ≥ 60 UBetamyl/g d.b. as one published brewing threshold | Published [19] |
| Water uptake rate | Sharp rise over the first 10 h, little gain past 20 h, optimum steep 50 h reaching 38% moisture (millet 33% on the same protocol), 8-hourly liquor changes [32] | Published [32] |
| Rootlet growth | Peak root length 3.21 cm at 72 h (red kaffir) and 3.10 cm at 96 h (white kaffir) over a 144 h malt [33]. Sorghum forms a single rootlet system where barley forms three to four — rootlet mass is not the modification signal it is in barley | Published [33] |
| Green malt hydration | Ours: about 41% wet basis, held by spraying at the 8-hour checks [27]. Named as one of seven screening traits by Komlaga [20]. Sorghum will not finish on its steep water alone — an unsprayed bed stalls | Ours [27] |
| Mould on the malting floor | 10⁷–10⁸ cfu/g total counts in both turned and unturned beds on outdoor floor malting [34] — observed loads, not a limit; no cfu/g specification for the malting floor was located. Dominant isolates include Fusarium moniliforme, Phoma sorghina, Aspergillus flavus and Alternaria alternata, all mycotoxigenic. Higher steep-out moisture raises mould incidence during germination | Published [34] |
| Grist particle size | Ours: 44.4 · 35.6 · 8 · 12% on 14 / 30 / 60 mesh and pan [24]. The qualitative production target is a kernel split into roughly four pieces, not a particle-size specification [41] — a friability proxy, and the closest thing we hold to one | Ours [24] [41] |
| Kolbach index (S/T) | Ours: 12.6 · 13.2 · 16.8% (Hartwick 2019) [25]; 17.4% and a 2010 in-house entry recorded as the ratio 0.20 [24]. Three published positions that do not reconcile: about 20–22% against a 39.04% barley control [35]; and 36% KI for sorghum, equal to barley's 36%, in a comparative review [71]. Our malts sit far below both. A figure that ranges 12.6–36% across sources is not yet a specification — read the method before the number | Ours [24] [25] |
Wort — and two of these nobody can benchmark
| Property | Recommended range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Extract | 31.6–67.8% d.b. across 25 cultivars [18]; HWE 60.34–191.19 L° per kg [17]; barley context near 80% | Ours + Published |
| FAN | 59–140 ppm measured [18]; 130–150 mg/L given as the yeast requirement [5]; barley context 140–200 ppm | Ours + Published |
| Turbidity | FTU 90 median 161 (range 25–6,899); FTU 25 median 70; spin-pair ratio median 3.42 | Ours [21] |
| Wort colour | 3.60–25.10, median 8.80 across 155 production records | Ours [21] |
| Wort pH | 3.40–6.01, median 3.82 across 155 production records | Ours [21] |
| Wort viscosity | None of ours. Two published figures, neither read in full text: 2.45–2.71 cP for 100% sorghum malt across three Nigerian varieties [36], and 1.879 mPa·s falling to 1.788 for a 50% unmalted sorghum / 50% barley malt pilot lager normalised to 12.0% extract [37]. cP and mPa·s are the same unit, so these sit about 1.5× apart — consistent with grist, but [36] labels its figure “specific viscosity”, which is strictly dimensionless. A search engine also mis-attributed the 2.45–2.71 figure to a different paper containing no viscosity data. Treat both as unconfirmed until the full texts are read | Published, unverified [36] [37] |
| Flavour and aroma | Malted sorghum wort has been scored by a trained panel: turbidity 71.8, malty aroma 54.2, malty flavour 52.9, cooked-sorghum smell 39.2, astringent aftertaste 14.1, bitter 9.9, sour 9.4 — 12 attributes on a 0–100 scale, 10 panellists with 32+ hours' prior training on sorghum products, malted Macia against five raw-grain worts [77]. It is wort, not malt, and its attributes carry agreed definitions but no reference standards. A malted-sorghum beverage has 13 defined descriptors on a 100 mm line scale [80], and sorghum grain has a 28-term lexicon on an anchored 0–15 scale [65] — the word "malted" appears nowhere in its 85 pages. Against barley malt's 53 attributes with anchored references [66], that distance is the measure of how far behind sorghum sits | Published [77] [80] |
Field — properties that need land and seasons
The least specified profile. Most field traits are region-specific by nature — a days-to-maturity band that suits Kansas is wrong for Burkina Faso — so a universal range would mislead rather than help. Where that is the reason, the table says so.
| Property | Recommended range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 1000-kernel weight | 20–30 g typical, most common about 21 g; about 30 g preferred for adjunct use | Species [22] + [5] |
| Tannin class | Non-tannin. Confirm by ISO 9648, ≤ 0.5% where a limit is set | Published [2] [11] |
| Waxy genotype | Waxy 0% amylose; heterowaxy about 14%; normal about 23.7% | Species [6] |
| Plant colour | Tan gives the least wort colour | Published [5] |
| Harvest moisture | below 12% | Published [5] |
| Endosperm texture | Medium to soft for malting; hard for grits | Published [5] |
| Grain hardness | A trade-off, not a target — soft malts better and moulds worse; hard resists mould and malts worse | Published [23] |
| Grain yield | Still no same-trial correlation, searched 2026-09-15 — and one long-standing lead is now dead. Beta, Rooney and Waniska 1995 is reachable after all, and contains no agronomic grain yield: its "yield" means malt dry-matter recovery [75]. The closest pairing is a 51-cultivar southern African database that lists hybrid yield potential 2.0–11.0 t/ha and open-pollinated 1.5–8.0 t/ha beside diastatic power and FAN for the same cultivars [73] — but those are catalogue yield potentials compiled from seed-company and breeding sources, not measured on the plots that produced the malt, and no correlation coefficient is reported | Published — not a correlation [73] |
| Days to maturity | Flowering to physiological maturity 25–45 days, endpoint defined by the black layer at the kernel base, grain then at 30–35% moisture [57]. A conflicting statement gives 40–45 days [58], and a second handbook puts the black-layer moisture at 25–40% [59]. Calendar days are explicitly a poor predictor — thermal time is the reliable measure, and Kansas trials classify by days to half bloom instead [57] [59] | Published — conflicting [57] [58] [59] |
| Grain mould resistance | A universal scale does exist: ICRISAT 1–9 severity by percent grain moulded on a panicle — 1 none, 2 = 1–5%, 3 = 6–10%, 4 = 11–20%, 5 = 21–30%, 6 = 31–40%, 7 = 41–50%, 8 = 51–75%, 9 = 76–100%; classed highly resistant (1) to highly susceptible (8–9). Scored as PGMR on tagged panicles at physiological maturity and TGMR on threshed grain under a ×10 lens, without artificial inoculation under sprinkler irrigation at 80–100% RH. The same bulletin also carries a 1–5 scale (1 none, 2 = 1–10%, 3 = 11–25%, 4 = 26–50%, 5 = above 50%) — state which you used [60] | Published [60] |
| Disease resistance | Two 1–9 scales that run in opposite directions. ICRISAT anthracnose severity: 1 = no lesions rising to 9 = above 75% leaf area, resistant at mean ≤ 5 [61]. Commercial seed-guide ratings invert it — higher is better, and a head-smut score of 5 means 10–15% of plants could be infected [62]. A rating quoted without its scale is unusable, and quoted with the wrong scale it is backwards | Published — opposite polarity [61] [62] |
| Drought and heat tolerance | Commercial 1–9 ratings, higher is better. Staygreen: 6 or greater withstands above-average stress to harvest. Yield under stress: 5 is average, 9 attains higher yields than most hybrids. Heat response: 1 dramatically delays heading under stress, 9 is responsive [62]. No leaf-firing scale, seasonal water requirement in mm, or percent yield loss under stress was found from a source that could be opened | Published [62] |
| Standability / lodging | Measured as percent lodged stalks per plot, where lodged means broken or leaning more than 45° from vertical [63]. CVs of 10–15% are normal; above 15% the hybrid comparison lacks precision — a warning worth carrying into any trial we read. Commercial 1–9: root and stalk strength 5–6 acceptable where lodging is rare, 8–9 exceptional; post-freeze 6 implies up to 20% lodging [62] | Published [62] [63] |
| Pre-harvest sprouting | 2.9–5.0% sprouted across 11 lines, ICRISAT nursery [31]; a cross-cereal review gives a sorghum species mean of 24.3%, and 42.0% on detached grain against 26.0% on the intact panicle. Different methods, an order of magnitude apart — read the method before the number | Published — conflicting [31] |
| Multi-environment variation | Closed for composition, still open for malting traits. 361 landraces across three locations × two seasons show significant genotype, environment and G×E variance for every trait; broad-sense heritability amylose and amylopectin 75.6 · Fe 72.4 · protein 65.2 · starch 62.1 · Zn 60.8 · ash 53.4 · moisture 45.1% [64]. None of those traits is diastatic power or extract. A separate spread — one variety malted at twelve commercial maltings, DP 23.4–57.6 °WK, a 2.46-fold range [55] — is variation between maltings, not between growing environments | Published [64] [55] |
| Year-to-year variation | The same cultivars across two consecutive seasons move substantially: NS 5511 46.6 → 63.0 and PAN 8625 49.1 → 65.0 SDU/g, roughly a 30% swing, with seven cultivars rising and nine falling [73]. Carry the caveat: the source table prints the two values separated by a slash and never labels either with a year — the season attribution comes from the surrounding text, and is corroborated on five cultivars. Across sources the spread is wider still: PAN 8625 reads 54 SDU/g and PAN 8816 14 SDU/g in a later single-season trial [74], against 43.4/49.0 for PAN 8816 above. This is the variation GFB-MSS Part 3c says a threshold cannot be set without | Published [73] [74] |
How full each profile is
Counted over the rows in the five tables on this page, after the 2026-09-15 fill.
| Profile | Rows | With a value | On our own records | Resting on a proxy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malting | 16 | 16 | 10 | 0 |
| Lab | 26 | 26 | 7 | 0 |
| Gate | 22 | 22 | 8 | 0 |
| Wort | 7 | 7 | 5 | 0 |
| Field | 16 | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| All rows | 87 | 87 | 30 | 0 |
Every row carries a value. One rests on a labelled proxy rather than a sorghum-malt measurement, and that cell says so — it is named below, with what would replace it.
The column that matters is the third. Thirty of eighty-seven rows rest on our own records: Bard's production data, our published datasets, our own process documentation. Not one of them is in the Field profile.
Field carries a value in all sixteen rows and is still the weakest profile on this page, because every one of those figures belongs to somebody else.
What is still missing, and what turned out not to be
Most of what this page called a gap was a gap in our searching. On 2026-09-15 the tables went from 59% populated to 92% without any new laboratory work — the values were in our own production records, in our own documentation, and in literature that had not been reached. Three of the four gaps this section used to name have closed or narrowed, and they are recorded here because how they closed is more useful than the fact that they did.
| Formerly a gap | What it turned out to be |
|---|---|
| Wort viscosity — "no published sorghum figure in any unit" | Two published figures exist. Neither could be read at full text, and a search engine was found mis-attributing one of them to a paper containing no viscosity data. The gap is now verification, not existence — and we still hold nothing of our own |
| Sensory lexicon — "does not exist" | Three adjacent descriptor sets exist: a 28-term sorghum grain lexicon, a 53-attribute barley malt lexicon with a 1–5 intensity scale, and a 9-point acceptability ballot for sorghum beer. What does not exist is a sorghum malt lexicon with anchored intensity references — a much narrower claim than the one this page made |
| Germinative energy — "only barley methods exist" | True of the methods, misleading about the data. Sorghum germinative energy, germinative capacity and water sensitivity figures are published, and now have a row. The barley methods are applied to sorghum rather than written for it, so adapting one and publishing where it fails remains the bounded piece of work |
| Gelatinisation temperature | Resolved — on our own site, and this page had not caught up. They are not competing ranges: 61.75–65.51 °C is the DSC onset, the 68–81 °C band is where gelatinisation substantially completes. Gelatinization works through exactly this question and concludes neither number is wrong |
The one row without an absolute figure
No row on this page is blank. One reports its property only in relative terms, because the absolute figures exist but are not reachable.
| Row | What stands in today | What would replace it |
|---|---|---|
| Protease activity | 36% Kolbach Index, a modification proxy - and the fact that a comprehensive comparative enzyme table had to reach for one | One document. The assay is fully specified and the behaviour through germination is known; a single closed 2003 paper is the likely home of the numbers |
Two rows that read "None held" this morning closed on real sorghum data, and both closed in a way worth recording:
- Dormancy closed by asking the right authority. The seed-testing rules do not prescribe a post-harvest rest for grain sorghum at all - they prescribe a 5-day prechill, and exempt grain crops from dormancy criteria because their dormancy is short-lived. The question had a documented answer; it just was not the answer the row assumed.
- Flavour and aroma closed because a trained panel had already scored malted sorghum wort on a 0-100 scale, in a 2013 paper from the field's leading sorghum-brewing lab. It was never a missing measurement, only a missing search.
The gap that matters most is not on that list
Our own records contribute 30 of 86 rows — and zero of the 16 in the Field profile. Every field figure on this page belongs to somebody else. That is the honest signature of a programme whose work has been in the malthouse and the brewhouse, and it is exactly the profile a grower deciding what to plant depends on most.
Filling it does not require a literature search. It requires a season.
Two conflicts worth seeing side by side
Starch depends on its method. GFB-MSS cites a species-typical range of 65–75% d.b. Total starch by enzymatic hydrolysis and starch read by difference are not the same measurement, and neither range on this page states which assay produced it. A starch figure without its method is not comparable to another starch figure, which is why the master list records the method alongside every value and why any threshold built on starch has to name one.
Hardness cannot be optimised in one direction. Soft endosperm malts better and is more vulnerable to mould; hard endosperm resists mould and malts worse (Jambunathan 1992). Any specification that sets a hardness target is choosing a side of that trade, and should say so.
How this page relates to the standards
| Document | Owns |
|---|---|
| GFB-SDP — this page | Which properties belong in which dataset, and who can produce them |
| GFB-MSS | What the grain must be — thresholds, classes, declarations |
| GFB-SME | How the malt is evaluated and ranked |
| GFB-TGF | What may be called truly gluten-free beer |
80 of the 104 catalogued properties are not in GFB-MSS. That is not a defect in the specification — a specification should be short. It is the reason this page exists: the full set has to live somewhere before anyone can argue about which subset belongs in a standard.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure on this page derives from the malting sorghum properties master list, an internal catalogue of 104 properties compiled 2026-09-14, each with its group, direction, measuring party, method, published value or dated "none found", breeder-selectability, and current position in GFB-MSS. This page holds no number of its own. Where the master list records a conflict, this page records it as a conflict.
Nothing here is ratified by any standards body. The profile boundaries are a first proposal and are the most arguable thing on the page: a laboratory that also malts, or a breeding programme with a micro-malting bench, will see the lines differently. Telling us where is the most useful criticism available.
Sources for the ranges
Every numbered reference used in the range tables above.
[1] 7 CFR 810.1404 — US Standards for Sorghum Four grades: test weight, damaged kernels, heat damage, foreign material, broken kernels
[2] EAS 757:2011 — East African Standard, Sorghum grains Three grades: moisture, test weight, admixture, screenings, trash, protein minimum, tannin, defectives, weather stain, field fungi, aflatoxin, fumonisin, microbiological limits
[3] Grain Trade Australia — Sorghum Trading Standards 2024/25 CSG-1 and CSG-2: moisture, test weight, screenings, defectives, field fungi, mould, sprouted, foreign seed by species
[4] GFB-MSS — Malting Sorghum Specification Our own proposed thresholds and Profile A targets: germination, protein, fat, starch direction, DON, gluten
[5] ICRISAT — Status and Breeding Requirements for Sorghum Utilization Malting loss tolerance, gelatinisation range, FAN requirement, 1000-kernel weight, endosperm texture, plant colour, harvest moisture
[6] Characterization of starch structures from waxy, sweet and hybrid sorghum Amylose and amylopectin ranges by waxy class
[7] K-State named-hybrid study, via Gelatinization Sorghum gelatinisation onset 61.75–65.51 °C
[8] Evaluation of the Single Kernel Characterization System for sorghum True and apparent kernel density
[9] A Screening Test for Grain Hardness in Sorghum, ICRISAT Sodium nitrate flotation density
[10] Beta-glucan and beta-glucanase levels in improved sorghum varieties during malting Beta-glucan in raw grain and malt
[11] ISO 9648:1988 — Sorghum, determination of tannin content The tannin method the 0.5% limit is set against
[12] Swanston, Taylor and Murty 1992 — grain and malt milling energies in sorghum, JIB 98(2):129–131 Grain and malt milling energy in joules per 5 g, 23 cultivars, and their correlations with extract and diastatic power
[14] Steep-Out Moisture, Malting Loss and Diastatic Power of Pearl Millet and Sorghum Malting loss by germination time
[15] Taylor 1993 — Factors influencing beta-amylase activity in sorghum malt Beta-amylase optimum at 24 °C across 24–32 °C
[16] GFB-SME — Sorghum Malt Evaluation Standard Reference malting schedule and its acrospire endpoint
[17] Effect of malting regimen on diastatic power, cold and hot water extracts of sorghum malts Cold water extract and hot water extract ranges
[18] USDA Madison screening, 25 cultivars Extract, diastatic power, alpha-amylase and FAN ranges at two germination lengths
[19] Garzon and Drago 2018 — Aptitude of sorghum hybrids for brewery or bio-functional malted beverages The published brewing threshold pair, 22 °DP/g and 60 UBetamyl/g
[20] Komlaga et al. — Screening of Ghanaian sorghum varieties for lager style brewing The seven-trait screening panel, including green malt hydration
[21] Production QA Log 2014–2017 Turbidity at two spin levels, wort colour and pH across 155 production records
[22] Sorghum ID — what is in a sorghum kernel Typical 1000-kernel weight
[23] Jambunathan 1992 — Sorghum grain hardness and its relationship to mould susceptibility and resistance Hardness as a mould-resistance mechanism
[24] Bard's 2010 Malt Analysis Our own kernel assortment over 7/64 · 6/64 · 5/64 · through, grist grind analysis, and two S/T entries
[25] Hartwick 2019 Malt Analysis Our own S/T across three malts
[26] Midwest 2019 Grain Nutrition Our own ash and ADF on two grain lots
[27] Germinating sorghum Our own bed moisture target and the bed-temperature target and ceiling
[28] Steeping sorghum Our own steep-out moisture, stated on both bases, and the warning that the two sit twenty points apart
[29] Sorghum Trust — malting and processing quality of sorghum cultivars, 2013/14 Kernel size uniformity against round-hole sieves, and 1000-kernel weight by locality
[30] FAO — Sorghum and millets in human nutrition, chapter 2 Endosperm, germ and pericarp as shares of kernel weight
[31] ICRISAT — International Symposium on Sorghum Grain Quality Pre-harvest sprouting percentages across 11 lines
[32] Comparative malting and brewing potential of sorghum and millet Water uptake against steep time, steep-out moisture, malting loss and malt yield
[33] Changes during malting of two kaffir sorghum varieties, sun-dried outdoor malting Root length by malting hour, and the single-rootlet observation
[34] Lefyedi, Marais, Dutton and Taylor 2005 - microbial contamination, toxicity and quality of turned and unturned outdoor floor malted sorghum Total microbial counts on the malting floor and the dominant mycotoxigenic isolates
[35] Ciocan et al. 2023 - brewing with unmalted and malted sorghum, influence on beer quality Kolbach index for sorghum malt against a malted-barley control
[36] Effect of varietal differences and germination period on malting and brewing potentials of SAMSORG17, SAMSORG14 and SAMSORG40 Wort viscosity for 100% sorghum malt. Not read in full text - publisher block; figure taken from a search excerpt
[37] Goode and Arendt 2003 - developments in the supply of adjunct materials for brewing, JIB Final wort viscosity for a 50% unmalted sorghum pilot lager. Not read in full text - publisher block; figure taken from a search excerpt
[41] Crush profile The qualitative grist target for sorghum malt
[38] Kilning and roasting for character Bard's five-stage production kiln schedule, and the reason its finish runs above the literature's ceiling
[39] What makes good malting sorghum Bard's grain-purchase specification as numbers: grade, moisture, germination, test weight, DON, aflatoxin
[40] Supplier qualification The test-weight rejection floor applied alongside the acceptance number
[42] Grain source and acceptance Our own acceptance and rejection numbers for bushel weight, moisture and germination
[43] Sourcing sorghum farmer-direct The 13-point grain specification as contracted with growers
[44] 2002-2004 sorghum screenings Grain protein across 74 screened entries
[45] Montana State 2019 malt panel Beta-glucan in wort across three sorghum malts, ASBC methods
[46] Our testing: Blue Milo and Ivory 7 Three FGIS submitted-sample certificates, 12 June 2019. Read with the certificates' own limit: all three are stamped NOT OFFICIALLY SAMPLED, so the results attach to the submitted sample and not to any lot
[47] Veith 2009 — K-State thesis on sorghum for brewing Single-kernel diameter and weight before and after malting, hand-dissected kernel fractions, and a 9-point acceptability ballot for gluten-free sorghum beer
[48] Balderrama-Perez et al. 2019 — kafirin and protein digestibility Measured kafirin fraction shares in low- and high-kafirin sorghum, and kafirin as a share of grain protein
[49] Ferris et al. 2025 — sorghum seed storage proteins The alpha-kafirin share of total kafirin
[50] FAO — Sorghum and millets in human nutrition, lipid composition Fatty acid shares and lipid class fractions
[51] Hassan et al. 2017 — sorghum lipid profile Fatty acid shares by GC-FID on raw untreated grain
[52] Ratnavathi and Chavan 2016 — Malting and Brewing of Sorghum Polyphenol content of raw and malted grain across steeping and germination combinations
[53] Xu, Wang and Zhao 2021 — phenolic compounds in whole grain sorghum Total phenolic content by pericarp colour on a gallic acid equivalent basis
[54] Evans and Taylor 1990 — extraction and assay of proteolytic activities in sorghum malt The proteinase and carboxypeptidase assay definitions and their kafirin substrate
[55] EtokAkpan 2004 — convertibility of IoB, EBC and SABS methods for sorghum DP One variety malted at twelve commercial maltings, and the proteolysis proxies across 24 weeks of malt storage
[56] Sen et al. 2023 — non-destructive pericarp thickness measurement in sorghum Pericarp thickness for two lines and the threshold that separates them
[57] Texas A&M AgriLife — Sorghum growth and development Flowering to physiological maturity, the black-layer endpoint, and the warning against calendar days
[58] Sorghum Checkoff — growth and development A conflicting flowering-to-maturity interval
[59] Kansas State C687 — Grain Sorghum Production Handbook Black-layer moisture, and classification by days to half bloom
[60] Thakur et al. 2006 — Sorghum Grain Mold, ICRISAT Information Bulletin 72 The 1-9 grain mould severity scale, PGMR and TGMR scoring, and a second 1-5 scale
[61] ICRISAT — sorghum anthracnose resistance screening The 1-9 anthracnose severity scale and its resistant/susceptible cutoff
[62] Pioneer — grain sorghum hybrid characteristics Commercial 1-9 ratings for head smut, staygreen, yield under stress, heat response, root and stalk strength, post-freeze lodging
[63] Kansas Performance Tests with Grain Sorghum Hybrids, SRP883 The lodging definition, its unit, and the coefficient-of-variation guidance
[64] Endalamaw et al. 2025 — kernel composition in sorghum landraces, genotype-by-environment Three locations by two seasons, with broad-sense heritability for eight composition traits
[65] Thao 2018 — a sensory lexicon to describe the flavor of sorghum The 28-term sorghum grain lexicon, each term with a definition and references
[66] Su et al. 2022 — sensory lexicon and aroma volatiles of brewing malt A 53-attribute brewing-malt lexicon with a stated 1-5 intensity scale. Barley malt - a comparator
[67] Sastry, Upadhyaya and Gowda 2006 — degluming, storage and testing periods in wild sorghum germplasm Germination before and after three months' dry storage, across 20 accessions of seven wild Sorghum species
[68] Gelatinization Gelatinisation ranges by grain, and the onset-versus-completion reconciliation for sorghum
[69] Codex Alimentarius — pesticide residues in Sorghum grain, GC 0651 25 Codex maximum residue limits for sorghum grain. The published page renders from a JSON endpoint; the values here were read from that endpoint directly
[70] US EPA — 40 CFR 180 tolerances Sorghum grain tolerances at 180.409 pirimiphos-methyl, 180.111 malathion, 180.575 sulfuryl fluoride, and sorghum's membership of cereal Crop Group 15 at 180.41(c)(26)
[71] Taylor 2013 - 125th Anniversary Review: the science of the tropical cereals sorghum, maize and rice in relation to lager beer brewing, JIB 119:1-14 Table 1, comparative malt enzyme activities across sorghum, maize, rice and barley, including limit dextrinase and the Kolbach Index used in place of a protease activity
[72] Nguemogne, Desobgo and Nso 2017 - limit dextrinase potential of three sorghum cultivars, JASBC 75(3):255-261 Response-surface optimised limit dextrinase maxima. Full text not available to us - values from the publisher-deposited record
[73] Adetunji 2012 - database of sorghum cultivars in southern Africa, with emphasis on brewing quality, MSc, University of Pretoria Yield potential beside diastatic power and FAN for 51 cultivars, and paired two-season diastatic power values
[74] SAGL annual analyses on sorghum cultivar trial samples, 2022/23 Diastatic power in SDU by cultivar on a six-day reference malting
[75] Beta, Rooney and Waniska 1995 - malting characteristics of sorghum cultivars, Cereal Chemistry 72(6):533-538 Sixteen cultivars, one season, one location: alpha- and beta-amylase, diastatic power, dry matter loss. Contains no agronomic grain yield
[76] Evans and Taylor 1990 - influence of cultivar and germination conditions on proteolytic activities in sorghum malt, JIB Directional findings on proteinase and carboxypeptidase through germination
[77] Adetunji, Khoza, de Kock and Taylor 2013 - influence of sorghum grain type on wort physico-chemical and sensory quality, JIB Twelve wort sensory attributes on a 0-100 scale across six worts, one of them malted sorghum
[78] AOSA Rules for Testing Seeds, Volume 1 (2023) Germination prescription for grain sorghum, its prechill, and the exemption of grain crops from dormancy criteria
[79] National Research Council, Lost Crops of Africa Volume I: Grains, chapter 7 The informal statement that sorghum seed will not germinate for about a month after harvest
[80] Adinsi et al. 2014 - sensory evaluation and consumer acceptability of gowe, a malted and fermented cereal beverage Thirteen defined descriptors on a 100 mm unstructured line scale for a malted-sorghum beverage
[81] Djameh et al. 2015 - optimization of the sorghum malting process for pito production in Ghana Sorghum malt diastatic power across 20-60 SDU/g, test malting at 40.17 SDU/g under optimum conditions, and an optimised target of 42.2 SDU/g
Every row on this page carries a value. Where a row is marked Proxy, no sorghum-malt figure was found and the nearest real measurement stands in its place — a different species, a different grain state, or a different property. The cell always says which. A proxy is a placeholder for work, not a substitute for it, and the three that remain are named in What is still missing. That is a dated search result, not a claim that no value exists anywhere.
Version history
- v0.2 — 2026-09-15. Our own records searched before the literature, which changed the page substantially. Four figures were removed as untraceable: a 42–45% steep-out band, a 42–46% germination-moisture band, a 50–60 °C kiln optimum, and regional germination temperatures for Africa and India. All four were cited to our own evaluation standard, which had itself withdrawn them two days earlier for the same reason; they appear nowhere else in the record. The regional temperatures were additionally attached to a beta-amylase paper that does not carry them. Bard's own measured values now lead the rows they belong to — steep-out on both bases, the five-stage kiln, grain-gate test weight and germination, protein across four datasets, mycotoxins on three FGIS submitted-sample certificates read with the certificates' own limit, Kolbach, ash, ADF, kernel assortment, grist grind, green malt hydration and bed temperature. The acrospire 1:1 endpoint was corrected from "ours" to the Madison bench schedule's, with our production endpoint and its ±50% band stated beside it. Gaps fell from 31 to 7; rows resting on our own records rose from 8 to 30, and the Field profile rose from 30% populated to 88%. A wort viscosity figure is carried as unverified — both sources sit behind publisher blocks, and a search engine was found mis-attributing one of them to a paper containing no viscosity data at all. Three corrections were applied shortly after this page was published: the diastatic-power row's SDU figures now report the optimisation study's own 20–60 SDU/g range rather than a "useful above 30" line that study does not draw; an unsourced Chinese baijiu total-starch band was removed from the starch row and from the method-conflict section, which makes its point about assays instead; and the version labels, which read v0.1 against a v0.2 history, were reconciled.
- v0.1 — 2026-09-15. Initial draft. Five profiles derived from the 104-property master list; overlap counts computed rather than estimated; the ten malting-only properties identified as process-bound; four unfundable-without-work gaps named.
Related
- Sorghum Seed Standard 1 — the buyer-facing standard these profiles feed
- Malting Sorghum Specification — the grain standard
- Sorghum Malt Evaluation Standard — the malt standard
- Seed Traits for Malting — twelve traits, and a selection brief
- Cultivars for Malting — what named-cultivar evidence supports
- Research Asks — the open work