2 ms·

This seems a bit like finding an ancient pastry recipe and trying to make it without knowing anything about baking. There's quite a bit of domain-specific knowl

This seems a bit like finding an ancient pastry recipe and trying to make it without knowing anything about baking. There's quite a bit of domain-specific knowledge that the people who made the recipe would have that a random scientist wouldn't have. Beer requires a lot of care to get the right result. Among other things, the selection and maintenance of a specific active yeast culture is critical for the right flavor. Also, the story is at least misleading: they did not discover a recipe. They found trace particles on the walls of pottery. You don't just collect the ingredients of a baked good and then claim you have a recipe. There's quite a bit more to actually making it. How do they know what they were examining ("ancient beer would have looked more like porridge") wasn't just the mash or sparge stages of beer making, which often looks like porridge? Here's an account of one guy who tried to make beer (and bread) using semi-ancient methods: https://www.morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.5/hitchcock.html https://www.morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissue... I like that his experiments produced an actual hypothesis as to the origins of brewing: "This test was not a complete waste, however. Though it should perhaps be repeated in a warmer climate, it indicated that the earliest beer was not likely produced by the simple accident of grain being soaked by rainwater. The earliest beers likely did not appear until some process for mashing or malting was developed, either in the form of a gruel or a sprouted bread."

jly 9y ago
The idea of cultivating yeast for brewing is critical. Before people had any concept of microbiology or yeast, they were still able to maintain a quality yeast strain. The same material was used for successive beers, and excess yeast would accumulate on the brewing medium, which could be a fabric used in the brewing vessel, or a stick used to stir the mash. It was quickly learned that re-using these objects led to better beers that started faster, and these objects may have been passed down for generations.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  A good example of having the right yeast is sourdough bread from San Francisco. Boudin Bakery was founded in San Francisco, and used a french baking process with fermented dough. All of their bread has continued to be made with the same starter dough and yeast from 1849. It even survived the great SF earthquake and fires of 1906, as Louise Boudin threw some starter dough in a bucket and got the hell out of town. The particular yeast and lactobacilli they use interacts with the environment of the SF bay and produces a bread unique to that starter and that area. Making beer is a bit like baking bread in this way, but has more complex steps to achieve different results, so controlling the brewing environment is necessary for consistent results.

jly 9y ago

The idea of cultivating yeast for brewing is critical. Before people had any concept of microbiology or yeast, they were still able to maintain a quality yeast strain. The same material was used for successive beers, and excess yeast would accumulate on the brewing medium, which could be a fabric used in the brewing vessel, or a stick used to stir the mash. It was quickly learned that re-using these objects led to better beers that started faster, and these objects may have been passed down for generations.

peterwwillis 9y ago
A good example of having the right yeast is sourdough bread from San Francisco. Boudin Bakery was founded in San Francisco, and used a french baking process with fermented dough. All of their bread has continued to be made with the same starter dough and yeast from 1849. It even survived the great SF earthquake and fires of 1906, as Louise Boudin threw some starter dough in a bucket and got the hell out of town. The particular yeast and lactobacilli they use interacts with the environment of the SF bay and produces a bread unique to that starter and that area. Making beer is a bit like baking bread in this way, but has more complex steps to achieve different results, so controlling the brewing environment is necessary for consistent results.