<\/p>\n
Beer and malting date back centuries ago, long before recorded history. And barley could very well have been the king of malts that entire time. Today, it’s the preferred grain to make our beloved beer. But barley all on its own can’t create alcohol. It needs to change its identity from barley to malt like a superhero in disguise. Clark Kent is just barley. Superman is malted barley!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you’re into beer, then you’ll know that malt provides the color, aroma, flavor, and body to the beers we love. You’ll also know that there are three main steps to change barley from its Clark Kent persona to its Superman powers of malted barley. Those three main steps are steeping, germinating, and kilning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But how was the malting process carried out centuries ago, long before our fancy equipment and massive malthouses? How did the barley become Superman?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This quick tale is the first in a series of fun facts highlighting the history of malting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Legend has it that the Egyptians had it figured out quite nicely. They may not have had the same vocabulary terms for the malting process as we do today, and more than likely they didn’t get the exact flavor nuances that many of us now desire in our beer, but they did get beer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Their process was simple and got the job done. Place the grains in a wicker basket. Send that wicker basket full of grains down into an open well full of water to soak. Pull up the basket just above the water to allow for the sprouting of the new plant (germination). To control germination, they would either raise or lower the basket within the well depending on if it needed to continue to sprout or slow down. The heat was more intense higher in the well and cooler deeper within.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Drying was an all-natural process and took time as Mother Nature was more than likely the one in charge. It can be speculated that the grains were laid out on rocks or flat hard ground to soak up the sun’s rays. So what did they do on cloudy days? No malts for you!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Steeped, germinated, and kilned. No machines needed. But as the demand for beer grew, as it always does, the need for control over all of the processes became evident. Mother Nature may have helped to empower Superman, but she was not a reliable maltster.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Next up in the Fun Facts History of Malting Series<\/em> – the malthouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beer and malting date back centuries ago, long before recorded history. And barley could very well have been the king of malts that entire time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"FUN FACTS HISTORY OF MALTING SERIES PART ONE: THE ANCIENT MALTING PROCESS","_seopress_titles_desc":"FUN FACTS HISTORY OF MALTING SERIES PART ONE:\nTHE ANCIENT MALTING PROCESS","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technical-spotlight"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}