In search of a historical beer geek….
It’s not often I give up a cry for help in the old food history stakes – in fact never – but in this instance no amount of googling or old fashioned page turning seems to be coming up with the answer.
Now I realise that there probably isn’t anyone left in the world I haven’t bored rigid about our bread project but just in case here is the précis… We’re making bread from a wild yeast culture we have grown from scratch. Well, in researching the whole sour dough starter thing I came up with a comment about a bread and beer connection I hadn’t thought of.
We’re currently growing yeast from grapes (which, apparently, is how our warmer European cousins would have done it) along with a simple flour and water version that just relies on being exposed to oxygen. However, the Gauls and Iberians apparently made a jolly nice bread from using the froth for the top of their beer.
This makes absolute sense because it would have sped up the bread making process immensely as well as making a lighter loaf than the usual brick type affair. Anyway, it got me thinking and, digging further, I came across notes that the Babylonians in 6000BC wrote the first known beer recipe which used under baked bread to serve as the live yeast culture added to make beer.
Which brings me to my question…. Does anyone out there know either how to speak ancient Babylonian OR, possibly more helpfully, could advise me how to make a beer using our simple sour-dough starter (eg the one without the grapes)?
Nigel is muttering darkly about duty so I guess I need so say I only want to brew a few pints so I can use the froth to make bread – we’ll probably have to throw the actually alcohol away (never thought I’d ever write that…) in any case, I think I’ll leave the drinkable beer brewing to the experts!!!
Answers on a postcard please or to thecoastguard@talk21.com