ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES 79 
place to wheat in most countries. Only a very small proportion of 
the barley grown in Britain is milled, the products, pot and pearl 
barley, being used for soups, puddings, etc. Barley is deficient in 
albuminoids or flesh formers, the nutrient ratio being 1:12; the 
percentages of fat and salts, and the nutrient value, are about the 
same as in wheat. In some countries barley-flour is mixed with 
wheaten flour for making bread. Rye-flour makes a dark-coloured, 
heavy and sourish bread (black bread) or cake, which is the staple 
food in many parts of Scandinavia, Germany and Russia; it is 
inferior to wheat in fat, nitrogen, and salts ; the nutrient ratio 
being 1:9. The millets are an important food in Southern Asia 
and tropical Africa ; in India they dispute with rice the first place 
as a vegetable food ; some of them are equal to wheat in nutrient 
constituents, and they usually contain a larger percentage of oil. 
Manna kroup, the grains of Glyceria fluztans, decorticated and 
partly crushed, is an article of diet in some parts of Northern 
Europe. The grains of Zzanza aguatica, Canadian rice, abundant 
by streams and lakes in North America, are gathered by the 
Indians for food. 
We have now to consider the cereal grains as the source of 
the commonest of our food-adjuncts, namely alcoholic beverages. 
Various kinds of grain are used for the manufacture of fermented 
drinks ; barley is largely used for this purpose in our own country ; 
rye in Russia, maize in America, rice in Japan; some of the 
millets, too, are used in this way. In the manufacture of beer, the 
grains are first malted in order to convert the insoluble starch into 
soluble dextrine (a kind of gum) and ultimately into maltose or 
sugar, the formula for this chemical action being 
cé H? OF4 H?0=C& H! o& 
(Starch) (Water) 
glucose or grape sugar. The maltster causes the grains to ger- 
minate for Io or 12 days, so that a large amount of the starch is 
dissolved by the diastatic ferment of the cotyledon ; he next dries 
them in a kiln, during which operation a portion of the starch 
not hitherto acted upon is transformed into dextrine. Only a very 
small proportion of the proteids is rendered soluble. The 
plumule and radicle (coombs) are removed, and the screened grain 
(malt) is ready for the brewer. In the process of brewing, the 
malt is crushed and infused in hot water (mashed) in order to 
extract all the soluble constituents ; the resulting liquor, called 
wort, is boiled with hops; fermentation, the next process, takes 
place to a limited extent, part of the sugar being changed into 
alcohol and carbonic acid gas, the latter imparting briskness to the 
beer. One quarter of malt will make 3 barrels of ale (108 gallons), 
125,000,000 bushels of barley are annually used in the United 
Kingdom, mostly for malting and distilling ; half of this quantity 
being imported. Saké, prepared from rice, is the national alcoholic 
beverage in Japan; one bushel of rice yields 10 gallons of saké. 
