How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

by Ryan North

There are alternatives to malting to increase the sugar content of your grains. If you get lucky you might isolate a mold called “koji,” first discovered in China around 300 BCE. This mold—which looks like a dark-gray spot on rice—miraculously converts starches to sugars while also imparting a nice flavor, no malting required. It led to the invention of several fermented foods in Asia, including soy sauce (which is fermented soy) and sake (which is beer produced from rice infected, and therefore sweetened, by koji). If you don’t find koji mold and still don’t want to malt, there’s always the option of making chicha instead: here instead of malting you chew the food in your mouth for a while before spitting it out, relying on the enzymes in your saliva to break starches down into sugars. If you’re willing to get a dry mouth and don’t mind other people chewing things before you brew them, this is an ancient and viable option.