old word from early 1700s - a "Yeating Stone"

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I am interested to learn if others know what a yeating stone was used for, or perhaps what it may have looked like.

I have a will, written in 1729, (in Wiltshire) which includes the following bequest; "... the yeating stone in the malting floor"

Is it possible that 'yeating' may have been the spelling used for 'heating'?  A book about Wiltshire Words says, "Many words beginning with H, G, or a vowel, are usually sounded with Y prefixed"

Thank you. I look forward to any suggestions   

PS I hope this is best category for my query

[Watson]

Could a heating stove make sense in context?  It's hard to comment without sight of the text.

[AlanBoyd]

A reference to a yeating stone appears in a will detailed in Marlborough probate inventories, 1591-1775 published 2007 by Wiltshire Record Society (at archive.org). The glossary lists it as a variant of "yoting stone", and defines yoting as the process of steeping barley before malting; it is suggested that a yoting stone was possibly a stone on which to stand the yoting vat.

added: The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines yote as "Pour liquid on, soak. E17"

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Thank you Watson.  No, it's clearly 'stone', not stove. 

Thanks too AlanBoyd. After reading your suggestion I looked again at the will and the word might be 'yoating' rather than 'yeating' (i.e. an 'o', not 'e') so would fit the definition given.  I also checked Marlborough probate inventories, 1591-1775, which you referenced, and found the stones listed in a number of inventories.  (A pity there's no sketch or picture.)

Thanks again
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[arthurk]

My wife has often come across yoting stones in the wills of her Wiltshire families, and while steeping barley is one possible meaning, it could be soaking grain more generally. I don't think there's any settled opinion, though, on what function the yoting stone performed: something to stand a yoting vat on? a stone vessel in which yoting took place?

Another possibility given in the full OED is that yoting was the process of fastening metal (railings etc) into stone with molten lead, so might the stone have been a vessel in which the lead was heated?

[hepburn]

List of references in Bristol Inventories to 'Yoting Stones', 1601-1691. Concludes that best definition yet available is 'A stone trough used for wetting the grain or malt for brewing'

[GR2]

In older Scots yett or yeat means to pour.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/3ett_v

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Thank you all, I'm now better informed than at the start!
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[Capetown]

On Google Books.

William Barnes - dated 1886

Grammer & Glossary of the Dorset Dialect  by The Rev William BARNES

YOTING STONE - A stone cistern formerly used in Dorset, as elsewhere, in brewing.  etc. etc.

'In the old court books of Frampton Court, kindly put under my hand by Mr Sheridan, I find in some inventories given in on the proving of wills, and the yoating vat was among the brewing utensils,  etc. etc.  In 1678 we find "two yoating vats; in 1679 "the yoating howse"   the mashing house; but in 1682 and 1709 the name "yoating vat" gives place to "meashing vate or vat'"

It does go on to say....

Dr Prior, author of "The Popular Names of British Plants, &c, very kindly sent me some quotations from a book by Gervasse Markham, 1631, who in speaking of brewing, says that of the two kinds of vats or cisterns coopers' work (fatts) of wood, and masons' worke (cesternes made of stone), the cesterne of stone is much the better", and tells wherefore.

The yoting stone was so called from the Saxon geotan.  To pour out, and was the mashing vat.

"Ic tears steal geotan"... I shall shed tears...Cynewulf.