The malted grain apparently was ground and formed into a ‘doughy’ loaf, which could be dried and stored until needed. The improvements in texture and flavor of foods prepared from grains following their accidental germination would soon have been noted and followed by deliberately sprouting grain.
Malted products such as green malt were often given as wages in kind to workmen and serfs of the temple administrations but they disappeared as a food with the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
This shift of malted cereals from a food preserve to a basic substance for brewers may have been cause by the shift in food habits way from the preference of soupy cereal dishes, often seasoned by sour fermentation.
Beer-making is often illustrated in ancient Egyptian tomb-painting. The ancient toms of Beni Hassan about 5000 years old yielded artifacts that showed beer to be an item of commerce being sold not only in public drinking places but as an item of export along the ancient trade routes.
The discovery of beer is ascribed by ancient authors to the Egyptians. Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo and others, assert that beer was prepared from barley, and was called zythos.
According to Xenophon, who wrote 400 years BC, the Armenians also prepared fermented drink from barley.
Malting: the oldest biotechnology
