At the Cereal Crops Research Unit, malt quality analyses of experimental and breeders' barley lines are performed using standard ASBC protocols. Barleys that have consistently shown the best malting quality over several years are submitted to the American Malting Barley Association (AMBA) for commercial consideration. Only during the last stage of AMBA testing is the malt extracted under the "high gravity" plant scale conditions that are typical of the industrial brewing process. These experiments were carried out to determine how well data obtained with the ASBC mashing system correlated with those of a high gravity extract performed under typical 'commercial' conditions. This information will indicate how well data obtained from the ASBC evaluation assess the potential of lines for commercially acceptable performance. Malt was prepared from both six-rowed and two-rowed malting barleys. Four malting quality characteristics (extract, color, beta-glucan concentrations and soluble protein levels) of the worts were measured on extracts that were prepared using two different methods. In one instance, ground malts were extracted using the ASBC Malt-4 method, and in the other, extraction was carried out using a high gravity protocol similar to that used for preparing commercial worts. In the high gravity method, the malt amount was increased 2.48-fold and the mashing temperatures averaged about 5°C higher than those of the ASBC method. The data obtained from the high gravity extracts were normalized to account for the differences in the amounts of malt that were extracted and to allow direct comparisons to be made with their ASBC (congress wort) counterparts. Generally, the malts extracted under 'commercial' conditions yielded higher extract values and their worts were less highly colored. However, their beta-glucan values were similar to those of the ASBC extracts. The soluble protein levels of the high gravity extracts were somewhat variable, but were normally about the same as those of the congress worts. These results suggest that using the standard ASBC Malt-4 method yields data that can be used to select lines that are suitable for industrial use, which is confirmed by the fact that this method has been used to select commercial cultivars for many years. It appears likely, however, that analyses of high gravity extracts would produce information that could more accurately and efficiently evaluate the commercial potentials of the lines.