All grain carries molds and fungus.
Exposure to these while harvesting/drying/storing grain can cause farmers lung or organic dust toxin syndrome.
Some of these molds/fungus make it into the malt that we buy from the LHBS.
When malting my own organic barley, I find many of the "red" colored fusarium grains (which I remove). I'm not sure what the greyish/blackish colored grain kernels contain but I remove any that are totally black or that have visible mold fungus on them. (Obviously I can't remove all of them and commercial maltsters have much better malting processes that I do. They also have automated vision systems that remove these grains.)
What are the facts on these Mycotoxins? Are they cause for concern when making malt/beer? I've read that Aflatoxin is a carcinogen. (Only facts please, I'm not interested in hearing blanket statements that "nothing survives" in the alchololic environment of beer. That is not a true statement. Fusarium infected beer will cause gushers.)
References:
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/bmg/gudmestad.html
http://fyi.uwex.edu/agsafety/confined-spaces/grain-storage-and-handling/human-health-concerns-from-grain-dusts-and-molds-during-harvest/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycotoxin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium
Exposure to these while harvesting/drying/storing grain can cause farmers lung or organic dust toxin syndrome.
Some of these molds/fungus make it into the malt that we buy from the LHBS.
When malting my own organic barley, I find many of the "red" colored fusarium grains (which I remove). I'm not sure what the greyish/blackish colored grain kernels contain but I remove any that are totally black or that have visible mold fungus on them. (Obviously I can't remove all of them and commercial maltsters have much better malting processes that I do. They also have automated vision systems that remove these grains.)
What are the facts on these Mycotoxins? Are they cause for concern when making malt/beer? I've read that Aflatoxin is a carcinogen. (Only facts please, I'm not interested in hearing blanket statements that "nothing survives" in the alchololic environment of beer. That is not a true statement. Fusarium infected beer will cause gushers.)
References:
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/bmg/gudmestad.html
http://fyi.uwex.edu/agsafety/confined-spaces/grain-storage-and-handling/human-health-concerns-from-grain-dusts-and-molds-during-harvest/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycotoxin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium