Mead

[Truffle]

I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on Mead?

Specifically its origins in England? I wondered where it originated, and what its connection to the 16th century?

[Brad Ballinger]

Mead is a fermentation of honey and water, and is sometimes called Honey Wine (maybe this belongs on the wine forum). Some producers of what I'll call "fruit" or "alternative" wines use honey wine as a base for blueberry wine, chokecherry wine, pincherry wine, etc.

I don't know of its origins, but I would guess that honey was something that would keep year round, where as fruit was more perishable. And people can be resourceful when it comes to making alcoholic beverages.

I would think a Google search would reveal a lot of history and other basic information.

You can buy Chaucer's Mead for about $10 in some liquor stores.

[beans]

Here's something recent if your are interested in what fellow eG'er Okbrewer does with his honey.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Specifically its origins in England? I wondered where it originated, and what its connection to the 16th century?

I'm curious as to why you are curious about England and the 16th Century, specifically...

Got Mead.com indicates 500 years A.D. by the Celts, but I remember making it for an Ancient Egyptian group I was involved in...

[beans]

Got Mead.com indicates 500 years A.D. by the Celts, but I remember making it for an Ancient Egyptian group I was involved in...

Carolyn,

You never cease to amaze me!

edit: can't type or proof read today, as usual

Edited August 10, 2004 by beans (log)

[jackal10]

Mead is honey fermented like wine

Spiced or herbed mead is Metheglin, sometimes medicinal

Mead made with honey and fruits is Melomel (and delicious)

Wine made from grape fermented with added honey, often spiced is a Hippocras

A Pyment is spiced wine sweetened with honey

[Carolyn Tillie]

Got Mead.com indicates 500 years A.D. by the Celts, but I remember making it for an Ancient Egyptian group I was involved in...

Carolyn,

You never cease to amaze me!

edit: can't type or proof read today, as usual

Now I realize what that sounded like....

<giggle>

No, I don't remember my Egyptian past life (just my Japanese, English, and French ones!)

There was a pseudo-occult group called Church of the Eternal Source who studied and practiced the poly-theistic religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. This woman, Lita-Luise Chappell, and I researched what historically-correct feasts would entail. We prepared these feasts for upwards of a hundred people.

[beans]

Okay veering/brinking on OT tangent....

Sign me up! First you create jewelry, which is dear to my heart and then all of the other cool stuff I love too!

I'd love to attend an Egyptian feast complete with the mead flowing from beautiful vessels.

[Mulcahy]

From gotmead.com:

One of the persistent legends is this: It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon. NOTE: I have not yet found supporting documentation for this popular belief.

For weeks after our wedding my hubby kept demanding Mead from my father, much to my father's confusion.

[Truffle]

Thanks so much for the varied responses on Mead!

If anyone can link some substatiated facts on Queen Elizabeth I and mead or hops or beer, other beverages that these 16th C folk took pride in-I am interested in this because I keep seeing mention of Mead with QEI but no detail, and I am most curious as to why Mead?

Many thanks, Truffle

[Chef Shogun]

Mead is a fermentation of honey and water, and is sometimes called Honey Wine (maybe this belongs on the wine forum).

They have a few on the beer list at The Brickskeller. A roommate and I keep saying we're going to order a bottle, so I was going to ask about them in the beer forum! We need a "General Booze" forum for this kind of thing. I thought things like mead and barleywine were generally considered beer-oids. My (potentially flawed) understanding of sake puts it in the same category. It's called 'rice wine', but it's brewed more like a beer, IIRC. Then again, I'm more familiar with the beer brewing process than the winemaking process, so anything can look like beer production to me!

-- C.S.

Lieutenant Colonel Booze

[Carolyn Tillie]

Thanks so much for the varied responses on Mead!

If anyone can link some substatiated facts on Queen Elizabeth I and mead or hops or beer, other beverages that these 16th C folk took pride in-I am interested in this because I keep seeing mention of Mead with QEI but no detail, and I am most curious as to why Mead?

Many thanks, Truffle

More information than you could ever possibly want:

Medieval/Renaissance Brewing Homepage which includes articles like:

Spiced Wines and Sweet Waters (1529)

Five Arabic Elixirs (cordials etc.)

A series of articles about Gruit Ales

Precious Waters: A Miscellany of Early Cordials

Honeys, and their effects on mead

Hops, the bitter herb

Recreating Medieval English Ales (13c-14c)

Age, Clarity, and Smoke in Medieval Beers

A Guide to Mead

Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages (Compleat Anachronist # 60)

Mead for the Masses (from TI # 104)

A Pressing Engagement (from TI # 91, about wine)

Class notes: Basic Brewing

Scum (newsletter of the AEthelmearc/East brewers guilds)

Brewing on the Dark Side * Brewing with Period Recipes * A Good Familiar Creature * The True Bottling of Beer * Art and Mistery

Stumbling Peasants (newsletter of the Knaves of Grain)

Living, Literature, and the Fabled Grape: Imbibing Through the Ages in Literature

Early Medieval Brewing

Stefan's Florilegium Beverages compilation

SCA Links which include links to:

Mead and Metheglin: Recipes

Badger's Mead Recipes

Basic Wildflower Mead

The Bee's Lees: A Collection of Mead Recipes

Blackberry Mead

Black Raspberry Melomel

Blood Red Berry Mead and The Mead of Many Names

Blueberry Melomel

Dark Sweet Mead

Dry Strawberry Melomel

Ffor to make mede (13th century)

Gyrth's Quick or "Short" Mead

Halfdan's Viking Mead Recipe

Hrolf Arnorson's Mead

Hydromel as I Made It Weak For the Queen Mother (Digby)

Jeni's Brewing Page

The Kingdom of Ansteorra Brewing Handbook: How to Make Mead

Lemon-Ginger Mead

Maple Mead

Master Robyyan's Quick Mead or Weak Honey Drink

Master Terafan's Clove Mead

Mead for the Masses

The Meading Corner

Mead in the SCA: How to Get Started

Mead recipe from Curye on Inglysch (14th century)

Methalglyn

Metheglin of My Lady Windebanke (Digby)

Plain Mead

Queen Elizabeth's Mead

Raspberry-Lemon Melomel

Recipes for Mead (Digby)

Sir TJ's Mead

Small Mead (Metheglin)

Stout Billy's First Mead

Strawberry Mint Melomel

Sweet Pyment (14th century)

Syr Michael of York Mead

Weak Honey Drink

Weak Honey Drink (Digby)

White Pyment

Wilt du guten met machen (How you want to make good mead) (16th century)

Let me know when you've gone through all those... I've got more!

[Mayhaw Man]

Mead is, pretty much without argument, the oldest fermented beverage known to man. Think about it. Honey (which, even in it's purest state-and it is basically antiseptic-has a certain amount of airborne yeasts in it) , watered down, will spontaneously ferment. The resulting liquid will taste a great deal like whatever flower that the bees have been working on. Man figured this out a very, very long time before the Summarians figured out that stale bread, when thrown into a vessel and left for a while, can be turned into a beverage fit for a God.

In The History of Food, the stunningly detailed and really informative (also as dry as toast) volume on the origins of the things we eat and how we came to eat them, there is an excellent explanation of the history of mead.

I used to judge mead in homebrewing competitions, and I can safely say that anybody can make the stuff but very few can make it well. In fact, it is very rare to find one that you really want to have another belt of. BUT, when you do find one it can be a very refreshing and delicious beverage.

[jsolomon]

I'll have to support what Mayhaw Man said. I have tried my hand at making mead a couple of times, and I've never been very pleased with the outcomes. I'm not sure whether it's the honey I used, or the yeast, or the phase of the moon, or what.

It takes a long time to ferment.

It got me good and stupid. Nope... it got me stupid and ill.

I highly suggest many people try brewing it once if they are serious about homebrewing. But, very few people do it well.

[jackal10]

From "The Closet of Siir Kenelm Digby Opened" 1669. My copy is a reprint by Prospect Books. Many recipes for meads and metheglins

HYDROMEL AS I MADE IT WEAK FOR THE QUEEEN MOTHER

Take 18 quarts of spring water and one quart of honey; when the water is warm put honey into it. When it boileth up, skim it well and continue skimming it as long as any scum will rise. Then put in one Race (root) of Ginger, sliced in thin slices, four cloves and a little sprig of green Rosemary. Let these boil in the liquor so long till it will have boiled one hour. Then set it to cool, till it be blood warm; and then put to it a spoonful of Ale-yest. When it is worked up put it into a vessel of fit size, after two or three days bottle it up. You may drink it after six weeks or two months.

This was the hydromel I gave the Queen, which was exceedingly liked by everybody.

(Normal proportions for mead are 4 water:1 honey. They range 3 to 6 water to 1 honey by volume; boiled "until it will bear an egg", and "a good great handful" of herbs etc.

I guess the honey was somewhat impure as in some recipes the liquor is cleared with white of egg, like clarifying a stock before adding the herbs and spices, instead of the skimming above. The short fermentation times efore bottling make me wonder if it was not often slightly sparkling, like beer.

Edited August 10, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

For those of you following along I have moved this topic from Cocktails and Spirits to Beer. While technically not a beer, it is, in fact, a fermented, undistilled beverage and is a semi popular project for many homebrewers. Which brings me to my next point:

Has anyone ever brewed any Mead at home? How did it turn out and what did you use for the raw ingredients?

[Chef Shogun]

Mayhaw Man: Are there in fact any good commercially-availible meads, or are all the good ones homebrews? I know here we can get Chaucers and Life Force, and at least one more. Any of those drinkable? Anything worth seeking out?

[Truffle]

Wow, and fantastic, and thank you-all of you for your input. What a fascinating topic!

I'm finding that the queen quite enjoyed her mead, and I wonder what she drank out of, or rather, what they-her court, the common folk, what they used to drink their precious-spirited mead, and now, as the topic has gratefully moved into beer, what they used for beer?

Curious?

Any thoughts?

[Truffle]

Does anyone know what a campden tablet is and when it's used?

[jackal10]

Campden tablets are sodium or potassium metabisulphite and are used for sterilising. The active agent is converted to sulpher dioxide (S02) in solution. Add one campden tablet to a gallon of wine to give about 50ppm S02.

Alternatively use powdered sodium metabisulphite. Make up a stock solution of 2 oz per 1 gallon of water. Use direct as a sanitiser. For bactericide - use 2/3 teaspoon to 5 gallons of wine. Dissolve sulphite in warm water before adding.

They would not have had them in medieval times. Instead burning brimstone or sulpher candles were used to fumigate barrels etc, or they used boiling water, The lack of cleanliness and understanding of micro-biology made brewing and wine making a much more hit-and-miss affair, with success or failure often attributed to divine or supernatural intervention

[cdh]

jsolomon: do tell more about your mead brewing adventures... did you determine any factors that increase or decrease the quality of your product?

I've been meaning to try to brew some for years, but have always been put off by the logistics of it. I've only got the one fermentor, and tying it up for a year or more has never struck my fancy. That, and the fact that I've never tried mead in any of its many and varied forms other than one poorly remembered glass of ethiopian honey wine with dinner once, so I don't even know whether I like it at all, or whether I have a preference for still or sparkling or fruity, etc.

Brewing the stuff seems an easy enough project, insofar as the technical side of things is dead simple compared to beer. It's just the long long wait. All these problems could, of course, be solved by overcoming my personal inertia and picking up a few airlocks and gallon jug-wine jugs and doing the long slow secondary fermentation in the jugs, with different adjunct stuff thrown into each one.

Anybody up for an eGullet mead brewing adventure like we had on the Chef's Beer thread?

[Carolyn Tillie]

Anybody up for an eGullet mead brewing adventure like we had on the Chef's Beer thread?

I have always wanted to try -- back in the 80s, I had a good friend who had an old glass, Sparklets water container full of mead. He had let it age for over two years and I never got to taste it. Makes me think it might not have been so good.

However, I offer the caveat of being a complete novice -- I have never made a single alcoholic beverage and would need to buy equipment and get instruction from day one.

[Okbrewer]

Truffle. I have emailed you some information and passed along your note to a friend who is most knowledgable in mead and its history.

As far as beers in the 16th century, especially in the UK, you will not find much use of hops that far back. Hops are used to proivde bitterness to balance the malty sweetness, also to provide flavor and aroma, and as a preservative. However, in 16th century England most of those properties were relegated to other herbs/spices, such as bog myrtle, or heather. A combination of these herbs is what is referred to as gruit. Hops have pretty much taken the place of gruit in today's beer, but you can find heather ales and gruit ales.

Making mead is very simple as it is basically comprised of honey, water and yeast. Yeast is another component, however, that was not known in the 16th century. Brewsters (most brewers then were women and were called brewsters) knew that something 'magical' happened to turn honey and water (or malted grain and water) into a potent potable, but didn't know that it was wild yeast. They simple called it "God is Good!"

As a rule of thumb I suggest at least 3 pounds of honey per gallon of water when making mead. The yeast selected and used is very important! Many new mead makers use a champagne yeast and just let it go. The resultant product is very close to rocket fuel! It is very alcoholic and usually very dry, as honey is 100% fermentable. Many aspiring mead makers are not satisfied with that finished product, because what they had hoped for is a sweet drink that has the flavor and aroma of honey. That is why many people, such as reported in this thread, have had negative experiences with mead and don't think it worth the effort. But a properly produced mead can truly be the nectar of the gods!

Instead of using champagne yeast, I employ other less aggressive yeast, I have even used ale yeast. Most recipes suggest heating or even boiling the water and honey. I don't do that. When you boil the honey, the aromatics are lost as well as some of the honey character in the flavor. I sometimes will heat the water to 170F and then add the honey to make it easier to dissolve, but most often I simply mix honey and water and shake or stir until the honey is dissolved. No heat. I then pitch the yeast. And wait! And wait!

As someone mentioned, mead fermentation can take a long time. Even after fermentation is done, the mead needs to age in the bottle. (Aged mead is a thing of wonder, though!)

I usually make a base mead as described, let it ferment in a 'primary' fermenter then transfer it to a 'secondary' fermenter. In the secondary is where I might add herbs/spices/fruits/vegetables to flavor the mead. As was said, this creates either methyglin, melomel, pyment, cyser, hydromel, rhodomel, etc. depending upon what is added to the base mead.

Along the way, during primary fermentation, the brewer should be using the hydrometer to take specific gravity readings to decide if she wants to stop the fermentation. Instead of letting the yeast eat away at the honey until that dry, rocket fuel concoction is produced, the brewer has some options. One is to use the campden tablets mentioned to stop the fermentation. (A couple of tablets added to the 'must' prior to pitching the yeast will also help to kill any wild yeast that may have invaded the must.) If I want a sweet or medium sweet mead, I can stop the fermentation when I get to the desired gravity or taste. Or, secondly, I can always add more honey to make it sweeter or to give it more honey character. I will do this when making a varietal mead. Instead of using more costly varietal honey (mesquite, tupelo, orange blossom, etc) as the base mead, because some of the character gets stripped away during fermentation, I use a clover honey as the base and then add the varietal honey in the secondary.

Also where brewers commonly make mistakes in mead making is in the bottling process. I tend to make 'still' meads, no carbonation. Simply bottle without adding any 'priming' honey or sugar. But in doing this you have to make sure that the yeast is inactive, otherwise you end up with carbonated or sparkling mead, or worse, over pressurized bottles which could explode! I like my mead medium sweet and still. But I have made a sparkling blackberry mead that was champagne-like in its effervescence!

I have made many very tasty meads, if I do say so myself! One that I make that draws rave reviews is a black pepper mead! I use crushed black pepper and paradise seeds in the secondary fermenter, it leaves a nice hint of pepper to balance the honey sweetness. I have also sampled many great tasting meads, in fact last April I helped judge a national mead competition held in Alaska. Many fine meads were entered and enjoyed by the judges! So, home brewers, the ones responsible for resurrecting mead and making people aware of it, are making some very good product nowadays! I still get offered to sample some rocket fuel from time to time, but for the most part, the mead I taste is very good. It just take knowledge and education on the brewers part to know what mead should taste like.

There are some meaderys open that make commercially available product, but it can still be hard to find. But if you go to any home brew club meeting I'm sure someone will have a bottle or two of mead!

In fact, our club here in OKC is holding or annual "Mead Clinic" this weekend. We teach people how to make mead, explore the history of mead and of course we drink a lot of mead! If you are in the OKC area and would like more info on the mead event this weekend, email me and I will provide details!

Long winded post, but hope it helps put home brewed mead in a positive light!

[Mayhaw Man]

Bob,

Have you ever used alt yeast? It is extremely alcohol tolerant and behaves much like lager yeast as the end of fermentation is reached (i.e. it goes dormant and sinks to the bottom of the fermenter). Wyeast has several excellent strains available for homebrewers.

Let us know if there are any outstanding recipes that you come across at the meeting this weekend. I think I see a project brewing here. Perhaps if we get started in September we could all have some ready (or at least getting there) by the holidays.

Do people carbonate mead, or is it basically a still product? I know that the classic is pretty much still, but I was wondering more about the modern interpretations?

Do you find that the type of honey used affects the flavor? Some honeys are so strongly flavored I would think that some of that would make it through the process.

[theakston]

Thanks Bob - OK Brewer - excellent and informative post!

Do you use citric or other acids? I've heard that this is often needed for the yeast to ferment fully, and to add a sharpness.

As far as Gruit ale is concerned. Heavyweight in NJ make a great one called "Two Druids".