How did ancient people brew mead without nutrients?

[bernardsmith]

Not an archaeologist but I suspect that the claim that liquid at the bottom of any bag storing grain highlights the fact that those archaeologists have never brewed beer. You need malted grains to contain the enzymes to convert the very long and complex sugars to simpler sugars that yeast can ferment. Far more likely is that when bread was first made the difference between dough and wort was fairly insignificant and that bread (and or dough) was used as the substrate for beer and beer was used as the yeast to leaven the bread and the evidence for that would seem to be found in Egypt.

 

[Birrofilo]

I think , but am not certain that the same kind of things applies to grape seed: if you want Riesling or Malbec wine you do not plant seeds from those grapes. You graft the plants and harvest the fruit. But with grapes I may very well be wrong.

Grapes have a different problem. An insect, the phylloxera, damages the plant from the roots. The remedy is to graft the vitigno (Riesling, Malbec etc.) to a "foot" of American grape, which has natural defenses against phylloxera.

All European grapes are grafted on an American "foot" with the exception of certain grapes which are grown in the Veneto region, in Italy, near the sea, and grow in "salty" terrain, phylloxera doesn't like salt.

In the world, as far as I know, only Chile is so far immune to this plague.

 

[bernardsmith]

aha... but they are all grafted and not grown from seed. But the reason is different. Always learning.

 

[circitmage]

You need malted grains to contain the enzymes to convert the very long and complex sugars to simpler sugars that yeast can ferment.

Not entirely correct ... You need Amylase (contained in several substances) to convert starches to sugars ... many ancient processes get the needed Amylase from human spit (Andean Chiche, Japanese ritual Sake "Kuchikamizake", etc...) ... using malted grains is just one of *many* paths to get the amylase - and a little of it goes a long way ... Also, as a source for amylase, malted grains are far more complex to process to obtain the Amylase than other easily available natural sources - beets, celery, mammalian pancreas, saliva, etc...

https://sciencing.com/plants-that-contain-amylase-13428064.html

... the evidence for that would seem to be found in Egypt.

Gobekli Tepe (subject of first article I linked to) predates ancient Egyptian civilization by ~4,000 years ... Anthropologists documented and published the discovery of large troughs (160gallons?) with oxalate residue from grain fermentation ... Natufian, Ubaid and Halaf sites throughout the fertile crescent (again pre-dating Egyptians by thousands of years) all have been found with evidence of grain fermentation in ritual sites ... as is detailed in the second article, cereals were likely too hard to process with Late Neolithic technology to turn it primarily into bread (sow, water, grow, harvest, separate chaff, grind, bake, etc...) ... By the time brewing got to the Egyptians, it was already a fully formed economy, with sub-specialist classes (malters, grinders, fermenters, etc...) throughout the Levant and Fertile Crescent

https://beer-studies.com/en/world-h...anaries-first-brewings/Near-East-Ubaid-period
but to the OP's point, the lack of modern sanitary conditions in ancient times led to yeast nutrients being abundant and plentiful in whatever was fermenting ;-)

 

[Birrofilo]

as is detailed in the second article, cereals were likely too hard to process with Late Neolithic technology to turn it primarily into bread (sow, water, grow, harvest, separate chaff, grind, bake, etc...)

sow, water, grow, harvest are common to beer and bread. But cereals can also be harvested in the wild.
Bread requires milling and cooking, which is somehow technological, but cooking of a thin layer can be made on a stone (somebody says, a stone made hot by the sun), and that can be termed bread.
Fermented malt juice is probably easier to make, but is it beer without malting and mashing?

A book I read says that every few years a new discovery changes the picture in this strange question "which came first, bread or beer?". Glad to know at the moment beer has the lead. Who knows which will be first in a few years?

 

[circitmage]

A book I read says that every few years a new discovery changes the picture in this strange question "which came first, bread or beer?".

https://beer-studies.com/en/world-history/First-villages-first-brews/First-granaries-first-brewings

 

[Redeemer]

I can't get past the fact that nobody has latched onto my name for the chicken leg tossed into your honey must and calling it Pollomel. I'm giving you guys gold here

 

[skidmark]

I can't get past the fact that nobody has latched onto my name for the chicken leg tossed into your honey must and calling it Pollomel. I'm giving you guys gold here

It was enough to make me say, "Huh? Whaaa ...?", followed by a quick Google search ...

 

[burtom]

https://beer-studies.com/en/world-history/First-villages-first-brews/First-granaries-first-brewings

Thanks for the linked articles.

 

[Ty520]

and who says that the meads that were made hundreds of years ago were delicious? Often they were made as medicines - metheglin is Welsh and has the same etymology as medicine. The water was very impure as was the honey so it was boiled and the impurities may have contained some compounds the yeast need. Moreover, in the dim and distant past it could take a year or more to fully ferment a mead. Today, you can ferment a mead in a few weeks, bottle after a few months and drink fairly soon after that. Sure, the mead will improve the longer it is aged but in the past it was hardly even drinkable before a year had passed.

or, on the contrary, they would drink it prematurely, when it was still really sweet, funky and dank, with low abv. While there aren't (m)any surviving mead recipes that specifically address aging process prior to the 15th century, there are quite a few regarding wine and beer, and many (most) were fairly low abv - like 2% for beers and 5-6% for wine - which implies they didn't wait very long to drink them (or had yeast strains with low alcohol tolerance) ; this was probably for the best because, as you alluded to, water was often contaminated, so beer and wine were often a source of hydration to avoid getting botulism - otherwise, they'd be perpetually drunk

 

[bernardsmith]

Very possibly though some old recipes did suggest that the mead be aged and aging wine has a very long history. As to it being low ABV, that is possible if the fermentation was not active and the yeast not rigorous, but it would seem that they would not make a mead with little honey although they may have made it with less honey than many of us might. Medieval recipes seem to suggest 1 part honey to 4 parts water. I think that today we might us 1 part honey to 3 parts water (2 pints honey to 6 pints water to make 1 gallon where 2 pints = 3 lbs of honey and so a potential ABV of about 12-13%. Their meads may have been about 2-3 % less alcohol.