Amanda Box

Amanda Box

School of Agriculture, Food and Wine

Faculty of Sciences

Amanda is a plant breeder with a specific interest in malting and food quality in barley. She is currently employed as the Barley Quality and Industry Manager within the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.

Barley Quality Evaluation Laboratory

Overview

The Barley Quality Evaluation Laboratory was established in 1991, with support from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).  The primary functions of the laboratory are:

  1. To assess the malting quality of lines on a fee for service basis for clients from breeding companies through to members of the both the malting and brewing industries.
  2. To continue, in line with industry requirements, to develop and improve the methods used to assess the suitability of barley varieties for malting and brewing.
  3. To provide supervision of and support to researchers and students, not limited to those within the University of Adelaide.

 

Market awareness/intelligence

Understanding the needs of the clients if the most important role of a service laboratory.  In the case of the Barley Quality Evaluation Laboratory, this means a strong relationship with growers, agronomists, breeders, maltsters, brewers, marketing authorities and researchers must be developed and maintained.  The staff of this laboratory achieve this through:

  • Extensive malt quality reports generated for clients
  • Participation in twice annual meetings of the regional barley committees across Australia
  • Participation at grower meetings
  • Attendance at national and international conferences, including Australian Barley Technical Symposia, International Barley Genetics Symposia, Cereal Chemistry Conferences
  • Close interactions with various marketing authorities and Barley Australia (peak body for barley in Australia)
  • Regular interaction with Australian maltsters and brewers through discussions, participation in local section of the Institute of Brewing and industry visits
  • Interaction/collaboration with international malting and brewing groups
  • Supervision of research students

 

Quality Testing

Equipment

A summary of equipment includes:

  • Two Phoenix Biosystems Micromalters
  • One Joe White Malting Micromalter
  • One Seegers Micromalter set up in a Biosecurity Approved Arrangement premises
  • Two Anton Paar densitometer/viscosity systems (measures HWE and viscosity)
  • Skalar flow injection analyser (Diastatic Power)
  • NIR Systems 6500 Near Infrared Spectrometer (wholegrain NIR prediction for grain protein and other malt quality traits)
  • FOSS Rapid Contents Analyzer XDS Near Infrared Spectrometer (wholegrain and wholemalt NIR prediction for malt quality traits)
  • Unity SpectraStar (grain and malt proteins/moisture on flour)
  • Elementar Rapid N Cube (grain, malt and soluble proteins)

Malt Quality Analysis

One of the strengths of the Barley Quality Evaluation Laboratory has been the progress in the development of quality assessment methodologies.  This has led to the availability of a much larger range of tools for assessing malting quality than ever before.  This has led to enormous improvements in the flexibility of the laboratory to deal with the changing requirements for both breeders and industry.  In particular, the use of wholegrain Near Infrared Spectroscopy has allowed rapid and non-destructive prediction of malting potential in large numbers of early generation lines, or where sample size limits the level wet chemistry analysis.

A summary of the quality parameters measured is listed in the table below.

  • Analysis
  • Micro-malting (range from 60g to 120g sample size)
  • Germinations (both 4ml and 8ml tests)
  • Grain colour (L*a*b* Minolta colorimeter)
  • Husk Content
  • HWE and viscosity
  • Diastatic Power (alpha and beta amylases)
  • Free Amino Acid Nitrogen
  • Grain Protein
  • Malt Protein
  • Soluble protein
  • Kolbach Index
  • Wort beta-glucan content
  • Wort colour
  • Friability
  • Apparent Attentuation Limit
  • Lipoxygenase activity
  • Limit dextrinase
  • Beta-glucanase

 

 

Contact

Amanda Box

amanda.box@adelaide.edu.au

+61 8 8313 0628

 

  • Appointments
    Date Position Institution name
    2016 - ongoing Barley Quality and Industry Manager University of Adelaide
    2008 - 2016 Barley Breeder University of Adelaide
    1990 - 2008 Hulless Barley Breeder University of Adelaide
    1989 - 1990 Cereal Chemist Victorian Department of Agriculture

  • Education
    Date Institution name Country Title
    — University of Adelaide Australia Bachelor of Agricultural Science

  • Research Interests
    Agriculture Genetics

We currently have funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation and the Office for 'Increasing Malt Extract and the Export Competitiveness of Australian Barley'.

Assisting with teaching the Masters in Plant Biotechnology course in 2012 and 2013.

  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2011 - 2016 Co-Supervisor Evaluation of antioxidant capacity and vitamin E content in barley grains and the impact of processing and storage Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Thi Thu Dung Do

  • Committee Memberships
    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2016 - 2017 Member SE Australia Barley Advisory Committee — —
    2015 - 2017 Member South Australian Barley Advisory Committe — —
    2015 - 2017 Advisory Board Member ACRCP — —
    2014 - 2017 Member Northern Region Barley Advisory Committee — —
    2013 - 2015 Secretary Australian Barley Technical Symposium Organising Committee — Australia
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