## 3 Results and Discussion  
The standard FN is limited in its ability to quantify high levels of \(\alpha\)-amylase activity in malt flour. To overcome this limitation, the study aimed to modify the FN method to quantify high \(\alpha\)-amylase activity in malt flour. The modification of the method was carried out in two different ways: (1) using small amounts of malted barley and wheat flour and (2) using malt extracts. In both procedures, standard wheat starch was used as substrate, and the results were compared with \(\alpha\)-amylase activity as determined by the standard Ceralpha method. Twenty malt samples with different \(\alpha\)-amylase activity were prepared by micromalting the three winter barley varieties and one winter wheat variety. From the results presented in Table 2, the range of \(\alpha\)-amylase activity measured was from 0.6 CU/g (wheat malt _Lorena_ after steeping) to 147.9 CU/g (barley malt _Tristan_ after the fourth day of germination). It can be noted that \(\alpha\)-amylase activity significantly increased after the first day of germination during the malting process. According to preliminary \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c} **Water** \\ **(mL)** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
5.95 & 0.05 & 25 & 6.00 & 0.5 & 24.5 \\
5.90 & 0.1 & 25 & 6.00 & 1.0 & 24.0 \\
5.80 & 0.2 & 25 & 6.00 & 2.0 & 23.0 \\
5.70 & 0.3 & 25 & 6.00 & 3.0 & 22.0 \\  & & & 6.00 & 4.0 & 21.0 \\  & & & 6.00 & 5.0 & 20.0 1 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Adaptation procedures of the FN method. studies (not published), it was not possible to determine FN using the standard method after the first day of germination because the \(\alpha\)-amylase activity of the samples was too high and the instrument reached its detection limit at 61 s, which according to some studies is about 5 CU/g [15]. The results presented in Figure 1 show the effects of adding different amounts of malt flour on the FN and LN. It is evident that FN decreased when higher amounts of malt flour were used in the analysis. Moreover, FN decreased below 200 s when more than 0.1 g of malt flour was used, even for samples with \(\alpha\)-amylase activity of 28.4 CU/g. This means that when high amounts of malt flour (0.2 and 0.3 g) are used, the detection range is significantly reduced and all samples analyzed fall in the 61-200 s range, which may make it difficult to distinguish samples according to their \(\alpha\)-amylase activity. Considering that the relationship between FN and \(\alpha\)-amylase activity is curvilinear, the FN values can be transformed into LN to ensure a linear relationship with \(\alpha\)-amylase activity, since the LN values are proportional to \(\alpha\)-amylase activity [7; 26]. By transforming the FN values into LN values, it becomes possible to use linear regression analysis to establish a linear relationship between LN and \(\alpha\)-amylase activity, providing a simpler method for estimating \(\alpha\)-amylase activity in a sample. In this way, the values from LN can be used to create a standard curve for quantitative analysis, further increasing the precision of the analysis. As shown in Figure 1, the slope of the curve increased with the increasing amount of malt flour in the analysis, confirming the reduction of the detection