Malting in United States

Barley has long been recognized as the first cultivated and domesticated grain in the world, dating back more than 10,000 years. It originated in the Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped region located in the present-day Middle East.

Clay tablets describing the beer brewing process and dating back more than 5,000 years have been found in Mesopotamia. According to these tablets, Sumerians used to prepare “beer bread” out of germinated barley seeds.

Today, malting can be defined as a process whereby grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malting develops the grain’s enzymes which are required to modify the starches into sugars.

Barley was introduced into California from Spain during the last half of the eighteenth century by the Spanish conquerors and the missionaries who followed them.

Production was predominantly focused in New York state until the mid-19th century, but as the population moved west, barley moved with it, eventually reaching Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota. In 1861, the first malting facilities in Louisville, the Kentucky Malting Company, went into operation.

By 1881, the malt houses of the city have $89, 000 invested and twenty –six employees working 14 hour days to produce 68000 bushels worth $510,000.

In the 1870s, the largest grain market in the world was in Chicago. Chicago had numerous breweries and nearby Peoria was a center for distilleries, so malt was in high demand.
Malting in United States

Ancient history of malting process

Malting is perhaps the oldest biotechnology. The cultivation of barley and wheat was probably beginning in the near-eastern Fertile Crescent about 10 000 BC.

The malted grain apparently was ground and formed into a ‘doughy’ loaf, which could be dried and stored until needed. The improvements in texture and flavor of foods prepared from grains following their accidental germination would soon have been noted and followed by deliberately sprouting grain.

Malted products such as green malt were often given as wages in kind to workmen and serfs of the temple administrations but they disappeared as a food with the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

This shift of malted cereals from a food preserve to a basic substance for brewers may have been cause by the shift in food habits way from the preference of soupy cereal dishes, often seasoned by sour fermentation.

Malting and brewing are believed to have been practiced for at least 6000 years. One such reference to malting, in a city in Sumer, the Goddess Ninkasi was glorified as Brewster to the Gods.

Beer-making is often illustrated in ancient Egyptian tomb-painting. The ancient toms of Beni Hassan about 5000 years old yielded artifacts that showed beer to be an item of commerce being sold not only in public drinking places but as an item of export along the ancient trade routes.

The discovery of beer is ascribed by ancient authors to the Egyptians. Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo and others, assert that beer was prepared from barley, and was called zythos.

According to Xenophon, who wrote 400 years BC, the Armenians also prepared fermented drink from barley.
Ancient history of malting process

History of malting barley

Malting is a process where the seeds of the harvested barley are soaked in water until they sprout and begin to activate enzymes that can covert starch to sugars. Beer yeast will later convert those sugars to alcohol and carbon oxide.

Around 6000 years ago, the Sumerians wrote the first references about barley and beer.

During the next 5000 years the Sumerian beer recipes were refined by the Babylonians and then by the Egyptians, by the Greeks and then the Romans.

Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo assert that beer was prepared by malting barley called zythos.

According to the historian and student of Socrates, Xenophon of Athens (430 – 354 BC) the Armenian prepared fermented drink from barley.

The introduction of beer and barley malting into Europe began in 55 BC by Julius Caesar’s Roman Legions.

Beer making then spread throughout Europe and especially to the northern part of the Empire to the Gauls the Teutons and into Scandinavian.

According to Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD – 117 AD), the ancient Germans malted their barley before brewing from it.

By the end of the first millennium AD the art and science of malting barley and beer making were firmly established in the monasteries.
History of malting barley