I thought a post about Egyptian beer making would be appropriate. *grin*

Beer-making was usually the work of the ancient Egyptian women and they would start off with grain. This grain would be soaked in water for a day, rolled out and left to dry, then wetted again, crushed and trodden in large vats with yeast added. When fermentation was well advanced, the mash was filtered through a sieve or piece of cloth and the filtrate put aside to mature.

Usually the filtrate was seasoned with spices, dates, mandrake, safflower and other additives (hops were unknown). A relief in the Baden museum shows dates being trampled out in a large tub for this purpose. The stones of the dates were then taken out and the flesh rolled into balls and put into a container. The dates would not only give the beer a distinctive aroma, but also served to speed the fermentation process by increasing the sugar content.

Another means of making beer was by starting off by grinding grain into flour which was then made into a dough. Yeast was added and it was allowed to rise. Once it had risen enough, it was then baked into thick loaves. The loaves were then broken into vessels containg water and allowed to ferment. Stale bread could also be used in place of grain or fresh bread. The bread would be mashed in a pot of water, boiled and left in a warm place to ferment.

Ingredients such as lupin, skirrit, rue, safflower, bitter orange peel and resin could also be added to the beer for medicinal purposes. Before being drunk, the beer was poured through a sieve or fine-meshed cloth to remove remains of the additives and other impurities.

So..........who wants a jar of the best Barley-Beer this side of the Nile?


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Sources:
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
Life of the Ancient Egyptians - Eugen Strouhal