Episode 20 Wheat & Barley – Missing Real Bread & Beer

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Listen to "020 Wheat & Barley - Missing Real Bread & Beer" on Spreaker.

 Link to the Episode:

Episode 20 Wheat & Barley – Missing Real Bread & Beer


It's all grass!

Compare to Teosinte (corn before it was corn):


to Barley:
(2 row preferred for beer, 6 row usually eaten as a grain - functionally interchangeable, but some flavor/sugar/fermentation differences)

By Xianmin Chang - Own work by Xianmin.Chang@orkney.uhi.ac.uk; 
changxianmin2002@yahoo.co.uk,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5512681


& Wheat:
Photo Credit: Mark Nesbitt - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49399350

The difference comes in the germination temps, length of growing season, nutrient requirements, and then the all important gluten - does the ground flour - when wet stick together and stretch - so it can form bubbles during baking, or crumble and need to be a flatbread.


Quern Stones:

On a table to catch the ground meal (the early colonists would likely have had a stick in a hole chipped into the stone instead of a iron band)




Another typical way to use a quern at this time - 2 handed:


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