On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Phosphor wrote:

> > How in the world would all the grain berries all get into a >vessel and
> start fermenting with no one even slightly interested >in the edibility of
> grain?
>
> one possible scenario: a puddle of water in which the grain head has fallen.
> then someone drank from the water.

Another is that grains were being soaked anyway to render them
edible.  Soaking grains will not get you beer.  The enzymes must
be activated first, in a process called "malting."  Malting is,
in fact, the early stage of sprouting.  This releases the sugars.
One can imagine some grains in a sealed bag, intended for eating,
that reached this state and received some yeast spores, and got
left for a few days or a week.

Todd Moody
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