Clay tablets describing the beer brewing process and dating back more than 5,000 years have been found in Mesopotamia. According to these tablets, Sumerians used to prepare “beer bread” out of germinated barley seeds.
Today, malting can be defined as a process whereby grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malting develops the grain’s enzymes which are required to modify the starches into sugars.
Barley was introduced into California from Spain during the last half of the eighteenth century by the Spanish conquerors and the missionaries who followed them.
By 1881, the malt houses of the city have $89, 000 invested and twenty –six employees working 14 hour days to produce 68000 bushels worth $510,000.
In the 1870s, the largest grain market in the world was in Chicago. Chicago had numerous breweries and nearby Peoria was a center for distilleries, so malt was in high demand.
Malting in United States