Brewing Master

Question:

I recently make two different batches of soured beer using fresh wort (from all-grain brewing) to which I added pure Lactobacillus acidophillis cultures (from health food store capsules) and was very surprised to find that while the beer DID sour somewhat, the end results were quite drinkable.  Since lactobacillus is present on all malted grain, and just about everywhere else, perhaps one of the secrets to the ancient Egyptian brews was this organism?  Their brews may have resembled Lambics rather than modern ales? Bruce Ross

Response:

I kept waiting for a knowledgeable home baker, but you seem to be both.  It was very funny watching some of the most intense proponents of the "sci" in sci.archaeology make comments off the top of their heads about a subject they obviously knew nothing about. The bread making is important to the beer making here because beer is an offshoot of bread in Egyptian brewing.  They drank it through a straw because it was basically bread that had been soaked in water and allowed to ferment.

The main reason that beer in Egypt and Mesopotamia was drunk through a straw was that it was top brewed and had many impurities that came up to the top.   There are similar brews elsewhere in the world.  The whole point of the initial discussion was the use of yeast as a specific "ingredient."  As far as I can tell from looking at the literature, there was no such specific added ingredient.  As many have pointed out here, the yeast that had an effect on the brew may have come from the air and not have been added by human hands.  I recall years ago being shown the oldest perserved brewing installation in England, which, if memory serves correctly, was on the estate of Fox Talbot (the "inventor" of photography, but also a participant in the decipherment of the cuneiform script).  The whole thing was almost the size of a barn and the pan in which the ale brewed was very shallow and the yeast came from the air.   Perhaps some brewing experts can correct me here if I remember incorrectly. The rather messy nature of Near Eastern beer is described in the Anabasis, as the Greeks observed the natives drinking through straws. As for beer and bread: those are two different things, as ancient  bread was probably unleavened.  I should also remind people that there was an interesting hypothesis presented many years ago that grain was first domesticated to make beer not bread!   Finally, I would like to signal another hypothesis, by Marvin Powell, who knows quite a bit about both the production and consumption of such things, that Mesopotamian beer may have been more like kvas than what we call beer.

Response:

The whole point of the initial discussion was the use of yeast as a specific "ingredient."  As far as I can tell from looking at the literature, there was no such specific added ingredient.

The whole point of most of the posts about where the yeast came from is that you don’t need a specific ingredient.   But while we are on the subject, do you know if there is any record of them using a "starter" or "mother" from the old batch to begin the new one. Also, since we are discussing unleavened bread, please note that there is quite a difference between a tortilla and a pita bread.  The pita bread, a modern middle eastern bread, is leavened.  The tortilla is not.  Both puff up in the baking/grilling, but the tortilla looses its puff almost immediately and the pita doesn’t.  Which type of bread did the Egyptians make?   Errrr… Piotr, if the Egyptians made flat unleavened bread, how come the drawings, paintings and sculptures of bread show loaves?  In the book I’m looking at right now (READING EGYPTIAN ART, by Richard H. Wilkinson, 1992) on page 206 there is a photo of a fourth dynasty stele showing loaves of bread on an offering table.  On page 207 the author says "…the hieroglyth [for bread] represents the type of tall bread loaf most often found in offering scenes.  These tall loaves were baked in clay pots and are represented in various stages of the baking process in a number of Egyptian reliefs."  He goes on to explain that the loaves are frequently shown "halved or sliced". Piotr, you don’t bake unleavened bread in clay pots and you can’t slice unleavened bread. Stella Nemeth

Response:

I thought a more knowledgeable "home brewer" would have responded by now, but no one has so I will.

Some body asked me "Have you been reading the bread/beer thread (Yeast thread)? Yes, but I have nothing to contribute to it since I don’t know where the yeast they used came from either. I have always gotten my yeast either out of a packet or tin; or saved and reused the dregs filtered from my last batch, or some combination thereof. I was suprised at the remark  that because unleavened bread was popular in the Near East, perhaps that meant that yeast wasn’t present in or necessary to the formation of an alcoholic beverage. Airborne yeast spores are ubiquitous.  To produce a good ferment, either beer or wine, the closest attention must be paid not to what yeast you use but to what yeast you exclude.  You must take care to sterilize the ingredients to kill any "wild" yeast spores that will surely be present.  During fermentation, water traps are used to allow the gases to escape but still prevent airborne yeast spores from contaminating the lot.

The real question, as I saw it,  was how did the Egyptians discover or invent the process. hmmm..Smuts, rusts, molds and mildews are closely related to yeasts. Maybe all they did was let some grain get wet, perhaps due to an infrequent rain, and then they let it sit for a while and the process resulted in a mash. What the Egyptians observed would not be too different from what they saw happen to the grain they saw ripening in  their fields The Egyptians were good observers and what they would have seen would have been the observable growth of a frothy foam. What they would have attributed it to I don’t know, but it is similar to some of the things which happen to their grain in the fields so they might have associated it with other fungi. At any rate, fungi generally and yeast in particular have been used medicinally since the middle bronze age or even earlier in many cultures, not just Egypt. In one of my home brewing books, long since discarded, the author speculated that regions known for the quality of their brew owe their fame as much to the wild yeasts present in the area as to the quality of the locally grown ingredients. As far as I know, yeast is the single organism that converts carbohydrates to ethyl alcohol.  No yeast, no brewing.  Fortunately yeast is everywhere.  You don’t have to know you’re using it to use it.

…alcohol is a by product of all yeasts, but I don’t think it was airborne as others have suggested, though most fungi are spread as spores… I think it was a yeast which was attached to or associated with grain naturally, not a yeast from some random source. It made me wonder what the selection criteria for brewers yeasts   was, where they come from; (yeasts and other fungi are present in virtually all organic and even on some inorganic substances); and who first decided to try drinking the efluvia of a rotted fermented mash? Personally, I think you  would have to get me drunk first before I would try that stuff…:) A "starter" is conventional when making sourdough bread, that is a bit of the last batch of dough added to the new batch.  That’s how the new batch is inoculated with the previous (successful) culture.

Yes, though high concentrations of the alcohol produced by yeast kill the yeast and stop the fermentation process, some yeasts eventually develops a tolerance for alcohol which allows the fermentation to continue longer and produces a better beer. So the ancient Egyptians used yeast, in the same way that they saw by the light of the sun.  I’ll speculate now, let me know if I’m out of line.  If the recovered materials refer to adding a bit of the old brew "for luck", or maybe that the best beer is produced in old barrels, that’s where they introduced their yeast cultures. I’m inclined to think that enjoying a good tipple is a fairly universal human experience.  If the ancient Egyptians enjoyed their brew, they knew how to maintain a yeast culture.  They may very well not have known that they knew it as such. Brewing has always been a fairly arcane art.  That’s a lot of the fun.

By the way, many yeasts are used industrially to produce other medicines, and drugs besides alcohol. "Vitamin D is prepared by irradiation of ergosterol a substance which may be obtained from waste brewers yeast." (Yes, I looked it up:) in  "Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia", New York, 1971 -mark

steve

Response:

~ As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern ~ brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for ~ anything. If they did not use yeast how did they change the sugar to alcohol? Or do you mean that they used wild yeasts and did not realise that yeast were involved?

Wine is made very easily without added yeast because airborne yeast has a great affinity for the grape on the vine.  Maybe yeast has an affinity for grains, too, and was not an added ingredient.  I say this because I can’t believe that Egyptians would continue to eat unleavened bread if they had discovered yeast. — Tom Schmal Whatever we see or feel or do is the effect of whatever we have seen or felt or done.

Response:

At the conference on the Origins of the Egyptian State held at UCLA in November 1995, Mark Lehner showed us slides of a bakery discovered to the east of the Moslem cemetery at Giza which was probably used to feed the pyramid workers. Soil samples yielded yeasts. Yeasts grow naturally on wheat, so packets of yeast were not necessary. Experiments were conducted by the National Geographic Society which I am sure will make it into an issue shortly (we were shown slides of the experiment by Mark Lehner). As they are many types of Egyptian breads, we can assume that some were unleavened cracker types and some were probably closer akin to cake as they contained nuts and dates. The Newsletter of the Egypt Exploration Society ran an article on the British experiment with ancient beer in an issue last year (early 1995 I believe), I don’t have the reference handy. Suredesign = Al Berens

Response:

Wine is made very easily without added yeast because airborne yeast has a great affinity for the grape on the vine.  Maybe yeast has an affinity for grains, too, and was not an added ingredient.  I say this because I can’t believe that Egyptians would continue to eat unleavened bread if they had discovered yeast.

What evidence do you have that they only ate unleavened bread?  What evidence do you have that they did not eat leavened bread?  After all, do not Mexicans eat unleavened bread (tortillas) even though they know about yeast?

Response:

I thought a more knowledgeable "home brewer" would have responded by now, but no one has so I will. Airborne yeast spores are ubiquitous.  To produce a good ferment, either beer or wine, the closest attention must be paid not to what yeast you use but to what yeast you exclude.  You must take care to sterilize the ingredients to kill any "wild" yeast spores that will surely be present.  During fermentation, water traps are used to allow the gases to escape but still prevent airborne yeast spores from contaminating the lot. In one of my home brewing books, long since discarded, the author speculated that regions known for the quality of their brew owe their fame as much to the wild yeasts present in the area as to the quality of the locally grown ingredients. As far as I know, yeast is the single organism that converts carbohydrates to ethyl alcohol.  No yeast, no brewing.  Fortunately yeast is everywhere.  You don’t have to know you’re using it to use it. A "starter" is conventional when making sourdough bread, that is a bit of the last batch of dough added to the new batch.  That’s how the new batch is inoculated with the previous (successful) culture. So the ancient Egyptians used yeast, in the same way that they saw by the light of the sun.  I’ll speculate now, let me know if I’m out of line.  If the recovered materials refer to adding a bit of the old brew "for luck", or maybe that the best beer is produced in old barrels, that’s where they introduced their yeast cultures. I’m inclined to think that enjoying a good tipple is a fairly universal human experience.  If the ancient Egyptians enjoyed their brew, they knew how to maintain a yeast culture.  They may very well not have known that they knew it as such. Brewing has always been a fairly arcane art.  That’s a lot of the fun. -mark

Response:

I have read that ancient brewers would take a portion of a finished beer and add it to their beginning beers, much like our current re-use of yeast in the bottom of a carboy.

Response:

I thought a more knowledgeable "home brewer" would have responded by now, but no one has so I will.

I kept waiting for a knowledgeable home baker, but you seem to be both.  It was very funny watching some of the most intense proponents of the "sci" in sci.archaeology make comments off the top of their heads about a subject they obviously knew nothing about. The bread making is important to the beer making here because beer is an offshoot of bread in Egyptian brewing.  They drank it through a straw because it was basically bread that had been soaked in water and allowed to ferment. Stella Nemeth

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – If they did not use yeast how did they change the sugar to alcohol? Or do you mean that they used wild yeasts and did not realise that yeast were involved? I will look thi up in a few days more fully, but from my understanding of the technology, the sprouting of barley into a form of malt produced enzymes that began the process.  I am off for a few days, but when I come back I will go back to the literature and see what I can dig.  One thing I am rather certain of is that in the ancient "recepies" and ingredient lists there is no word that has been identified as yeast.

Sigh…. Malting barley DOES produce enzymes that "start the process"–we do it TODAY.  However, these enzymes do NOT ferment the brew.  They only break down starch, proteins, and polysaccharides into something that the yeasts can eat. As for not specifically mentioning yeast, just because it is not mentioned does not mean that it is not used.  Belgian Lambics are still fermented without "adding yeast", but yeast is what ferments them.  The yeast is "wild" and enters the open vats via dust carried on the air. The fact that yeast is not mentioned is no justification for concluding that yeast was not involved in fermentation.  If it was not yeast, then tell me WHAT ORGANISM DID THE FERMENTING? Yeast was DISCOVERED in beer, it was not an innovation.  When microbiologists analyzed beer in the 19th century, they DISCOVERED that yeast was ALREADY THERE.  A little experimentation revealed that it was the yeast that did the fermenting.  However, THE YEAST HAD BEEN IN THE BREW BEFORE ITS FUNCTION WAS KNOWN. In 1700, no recipe specifically referred to yeasts as fermenting organisms.  In 1900, most commercial recipes did.  Am I to infer from this that beers in 1700 were fermented without yeast, but yeast was invented by 1900?

Response:

As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for anything. I would be interested to find out if someone has evidence of this.  There is an excellect recent book of essays on ANE brewing and beer edited by Lucio Milano, Drinking in Ancient Societies:  History and  Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East. Padua: Sargon, 1994.  It includes and article on beer in the Pyramid Texts.     Yeast must have been involved, it may not have been known by name, but I can’t think of any other organism that would work as well. They may not have specifically and intentionally added yeast, but I’m certain that yeast was involved.

Are you sure about the yeast?  I understood that bread in ancient Mesopotamia was unleavened, as I believe some Middle Eastern breads are to this day.  (That’s why they’re flat.) Judith

Response:

Yesterday, the Learning Channel showed a documentary about a British scientific team’s attempt to reconstitute Egyptian beer has it could have been brewed at the time of Nefertiti. The describe in details how they chose the grain, the containers, the water etc. When it came to the selection of the yeast, they simply said "we used a sort of yeast that could have been used by the antic Egyptian". Nothing else. Well, I am not a brewing expert but I would have believed that the particular sort of yeast used would have a non negligeable effect on the beer. Is it right? The documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing and brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down in big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast?

Response:

Yesterday, the Learning Channel showed a documentary about a British scientific team’s attempt to reconstitute Egyptian beer has it could have been brewed at the time of Nefertiti. The describe in details how they chose the grain, the containers, the water etc. When it came to the selection of the yeast, they simply said "we used a sort of yeast that could have been used by the antic Egyptian". Nothing else. Well, I am not a brewing expert but I would have believed that the particular sort of yeast used would have a non negligeable effect on the beer. Is it right? The documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing and brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down in big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast?

Hmmmmm…. did they say anything about the beer smelling like fish? — Dave Fillmore                   DNRC                             "Beer is proof that God loves us." http://www.io.com/~fitster/

Response:

writes: Yesterday, the Learning Channel showed a documentary about a British scientific team’s attempt to reconstitute Egyptian beer has it could have been brewed at the time of Nefertiti. The describe in details how they chose the grain, the containers, the water etc. When it came to the selection of the yeast, they simply said "we used a sort of yeast that could have been used by the antic Egyptian". Nothing else. Well, I am not a brewing expert but I would have believed that the particular sort of yeast used would have a non negligeable effect on the beer. Is it right? The documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing and brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down in big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast?

In the past couple of years National Geographic had an article about an attempt to make egyptian bread- they said that the ancients didn’t know about yeast, they thought it was magic/divine/whatever. In the article, they left wet flour, I think, on their Cairo balcony for a few days to get a culture going. I agree with you, the beer brewers kinda skimmed over that "yeast" bit, but it seemed they put a fair amount of effort into the other work… john

Response:

writes: snip The documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing and brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down in big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast?

As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for anything. I would be interested to find out if someone has evidence of this.  There is an excellect recent book of essays on ANE brewing and beer edited by Lucio Milano, Drinking in Ancient Societies:  History and  Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East. Padua: Sargon, 1994.  It includes and article on beer in the Pyramid Texts.    

Response:

I will look thi up in a few days more fully, but from my understanding of the technology, the sprouting of barley into a form of malt produced enzymes that began the process.  I am off for a few days, but when I come back I will go back to the literature and see what I can dig.  One thing I am rather certain of is that in the ancient "recepies" and ingredient lists there is no word that has been identified as yeast.

        The sprouting of barley begins the process that changes starches to simple sugars. It does not begin the process that changes sugars to alcohol. Just because they didn’t know about yeast doesn’t mean it wasn’t present; did they pour in some of an old batch to the new batch? — Creature of the wheel, lord of the internal combustion engine. http://www.iac.net/~crawford

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If they did not use yeast how did they change the sugar to alcohol? Or do you mean that they used wild yeasts and did not realise that yeast were involved?

I will look thi up in a few days more fully, but from my understanding of the technology, the sprouting of barley into a form of malt produced enzymes that began the process.  I am off for a few days, but when I come back I will go back to the literature and see what I can dig.  One thing I am rather certain of is that in the ancient "recepies" and ingredient lists there is no word that has been identified as yeast.

Response:

Are you sure about the yeast?  I understood that bread in ancient Mesopotamia was unleavened, as I believe some Middle Eastern breads are to this day.  (That’s why they’re flat.)

If there was no yeast, there was no beer.

Response:

Are you sure about the yeast?  I understood that bread in ancient Mesopotamia was unleavened, as I believe some Middle Eastern breads are to this day.  (That’s why they’re flat.) If there was no yeast, there was no beer.

Yes, I understand that.  I only wondered if the Egyptian fare might have been more like pita bread than like an English cottage loaf. Judith

Response:

~

~ ~ ~ writes: ~ snip ~ The documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing ~ and brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down ~ in big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast? ~ ~ ~ As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern ~ brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for ~ anything. I would be interested to find out if someone has ~ evidence of this.  There is an excellect recent book of essays ~ on ANE brewing and beer edited by Lucio Milano, Drinking in ~ Ancient Societies:  History and  Culture of Drinks in the ~ Ancient Near East. Padua: Sargon, 1994.  It includes and ~ article on beer in the Pyramid Texts.   If they did not use yeast how did they change the sugar to alcohol? Or do you mean that they used wild yeasts and did not realise that yeast were involved?

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AIThe documentary also showed clay figures of Egyptian workers backing AIand brewing. Some of these figures were women (I think) waist down AIin big jars. Could that be the source of the yeast? Urrrp!  Man, that’s gross.  I wonder if the cost of beaver-smelling beer is offset by the value of beer-smelling beaver. <g —  * WR 1.33 # 690 * <MY LIFE v1.0 * UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for anything. I would be interested to find out if someone has evidence of this.  There is an excellect recent book of essays on ANE brewing and beer edited by Lucio Milano, Drinking in Ancient Societies:  History and  Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East. Padua: Sargon, 1994.  It includes and article on beer in the Pyramid Texts.     Yeast must have been involved, it may not have been known by name, but I can’t think of any other organism that would work as well. They may not have specifically and intentionally added yeast, but I’m certain that yeast was involved. Are you sure about the yeast?  I understood that bread in ancient Mesopotamia was unleavened, as I believe some Middle Eastern breads are to this day.  (That’s why they’re flat.)

There are (excellent) Belgian beers still being made by simply allowing natural yeasts to reach the vats via holes deliberately left in the roof. John

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I recently (Feb 6) watched a Learning Channel show on Egyptian beer brewing.  The Archeologist discovered pots that had held ancient beer, and with an electron microscope discovered the yeast.  With the aid of Scotish brew masters the brew was revived and is for sale in Scotland. (I don’t recall where though)

Response:

As far as I know, yeast was not used in ancient Near Eastern brewing, in fact I had no idea that yeast was used for anything. I would be interested to find out if someone has evidence of this.  There is an excellect recent book of essays on ANE brewing and beer edited by Lucio Milano, Drinking in Ancient Societies:  History and  Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East. Padua: Sargon, 1994.  It includes and article on beer in the Pyramid Texts.    

Yeast must have been involved, it may not have been known by name, but I can’t think of any other organism that would work as well. They may not have specifically and intentionally added yeast, but I’m certain that yeast was involved.

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