63 comments on We'll run out of beer before we run out of oil
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I once made a beer completely from sprouted wheat berries. But it is a fair amount of work and the resulting brew was definitely an acquired taste.
However, should circumstances demand it, I'm sure I'd acquire that taste.
To make beer from barley or wheat from scratch requires knowledge of a process rather than a recipe. You are manufacturing something. Equipment to grind and cook grains is required.
Basic idea: sprout grain, roast grain, grind grain, cook grain, ferment grain, bottle liquid.
Ok, so I grow a grain, get it to sprout. Roasting it should not be a problem. Grind it in a stone depression with a rock. Boil it to make the Wort. What about yeast?
How do we induce fermentation if we can't buy yeast?
It will ferment on its own. The yeast naturally occur on the grain.
People use commerical yeasts in order to get a more controlled and complete fermentation.
At least for barley and wheat, the cooking part is not particularly simple. You don't boil it. At least not at first. Instead it's heated to a certain temperature in order to encourage the conversion of starches into sugars.
Here's a great article: beer making at it's most basic as the ancients did it.
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.5/hitchcock.html
The author suggests that there is a symbiotic relationship between beer making and bread making. i.e. You use the yeast produced in the brewing process to make bread rise.
I've tried it, and it most definitely works. The bread has a wonderful mild beery flavour that doesn't seem out of place at all.
About 30 years ago, in what was then Zaire near the borders of Uganda and Sudan, I came upon a bunch of boys whooping it up at the local saloon. Actually, it was a few sickly looking locals hanging around a mud hut with thatched roof.
I don't know how ancient the recipe was, but there was little evidence of barley. I tried some. My stomach never recovered.
Give me the IPA.