The presence of a peak of soluble ß-glucan during malting has been suggested to indicate that ß-glucan degradation occurs in two stages (Walker et al., 2001). In order to investigate this suggestion, we studied a set of 35 barleys with wide variability for grain and malting quality. As a preliminary approach, correlations between parameters were studied over the whole set, and trends of acid-extract viscosity were monitored during malting in 16 genotypes. No peak of acid-extract viscosity was observed in these barleys and no clues revealing a two-stage ß-glucan degradation were obtained with this approach. Thus, a set of five genotypes having contrasting quality traits was chosen as representative of the variability existing in the whole collection and earmarked for more detailed studies.