Ancient brewing techniques

[VincentOates]

I'm taking a course in Ancient Egypt and my ears perked up when I heard that Ancient Egyptians brewed beer. I've always known humans have been making alcoholic drinks for thousands of years, but you have to wonder what techniques they employed.

For one thing, I don't think they had Starsan back then. How could they make good beer without proper sanitation? And for wine, people without fruit presses used there feet to crush grapes. How could that even come close to good wine?

 

[Celticway]

The fact probably was that it wasn't good beer. However it was much safer to drink than thier water supply and it gave you a buzz. What more could you ask for?

 

[hoppymonkey]

Yeah, those were open fermentations and they would be no consistency to beer quality and once a good infection started at the brewing location I'd imagine it stayed forever.

 

[pm5k00]

You don't need chemicals to clean things just elbow grease and boiling water. Now there's no knowing if the people of eygpt knew this or not, but anything preboil isn't that important, so I imagine with the quantity and massive amounts they brewed they were somewhat consitent and infection free.

 

[Daver77]

People still use their feet to crush grapes.

 

[bigbeergeek]

I'm sure their "beer" was wild, soured, spiced, and far from consistent. Highly unlikely that they used boiling water to clean their vessels. In fact, it's entirely possible that no boiling was involved in their process at all. Grain, grapes, honey etc placed in a clay pot with some water. Once a "good infection" was established in the walls of a clay pot, the beer produced from it would be as consistent as they could have hoped for.

 

[unionrdr]

Sam at DFH made that Egyptian beer with wild yeast he collected there & bred in a big starter. The beer looked like a yellow orange Hefe to me. & they brewed it in clay pots with barley cakes,among other things I've seen in tomb paintings. Fascinating stuff!

 

[NorthBay]

You don't need chemicals to clean things just elbow grease and boiling water. Now there's no knowing if the people of eygpt knew this or not, but anything preboil isn't that important, so I imagine with the quantity and massive amounts they brewed they were somewhat consitent and infection free.

Seems to me that if they could engineer the Pyramids and the Sphinx they might have been hip to the concept of boiling water to get things clean.

 

[Celticway]

I do not believe they boiled either, yet no one knows, it's pure speculation. Most likely the bacteria that we would consider infection today was most likely present in thier ancient beer.

One if not the very first beer was made by the village woman chewing up corn and fermenting with fetus excrimine. This was not the Pliney the Elder we expect today. Let's be real.

 

[ACbrewer]

Well when it comes to it, what is 'good' beer... We like the flavor of the yeast today.. who know's 4K years ago, they might have prefered a more sour/infected tasting beer. in YEAST by White and Z(something or other) they talk that we've only really been breeding beer yeast for 500 years - if that. but most likely less than that, closer to 200 for most types.

It seems obviouis but germ therory is only about 150 years old/proved with Pasture's work.