Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Mead Lovers Digest #0230
Mead Lover's Digest #230 26 October 1993
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Do not adjust your set (Murphy visits, in person) (Dick Dunn)
California Mead'n ("Larry Lynch-Freshner")
Re: a disturbing non-mead (Jane Beckman)
Wine ("Larry Lynch-Freshner")
"Honeyjack?" (ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu)
Best place for storage? (Mark Ingalls)
Mead recipe from 170 (Ralph Snel)
Bunratty (Non-)Meade (franc!kstiles@woomera.att.com)
pyment, my favorite! ("Daniel F McConnell")
This'n'That (incl. recipe) ("Dave Polaschek")
Comments on Digest relocation (Gregory Owen)
Sterilisation (-s90064445-d.martin-ele-60-)
Bunratty Non-Mead(e) (alchemedia@aol.com)
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead-lovers@eklektix.com. Send
subscribe/unsubscribe/admin requests to mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com.
There is an FTP archive of the digest on sierra.stanford.edu in pub/mead.
------------------------------
Subject: Do not adjust your set (Murphy visits, in person)
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 26 Oct 93 01:11:42 MDT (Tue)
Don't be worried if your digests #228, 229 arrived very late compared to
the actual digest dates. CSN (our Internet gateway, also forwarder for a
substantial part of the state) suffered the worst collection of delays,
phone problems, and outages I've ever seen...just as I was putting out the
first of the new digests. It's as if Murphy honored the digest turnover
with a personal appearance. This also caused me to delay #230 until things
settled down.
---
Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com (Digest Coordinator)
------------------------------
Subject: California Mead'n
From: "Larry Lynch-Freshner" <Larry_Lynch-Freshner@taligent.com>
Date: 21 Oct 1993 10:12:27 -0800
California Mead'n
Gee, I was wondering what happened to the digest...
Randy Ward" <RJW9@PSUVM.PSU.EDU> Asked:
> Bargetto Winery
> Soquel, CA
>Unfortunately, this is all that was there. Maybe someone in CA could comment
>about this possible source?
This is the maker of Chaucers Mead. A decent, but not exciting product.
Also, for the list of comercial meads, add Ellendale Winery, Dallas OR. They
(used to , at least) produce a dry, medium, and sweet mead.
Larry
------------------------------
Subject: Re: a disturbing non-mead
From: jane@swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 10:29:03 PDT
Bunratty Meade (TM), huh? Is there a possibility that this stuff originates
in Ireland? Ireland has been turning out some pretty different liqueur-oid
things, lately. This sounds like one of those. (If you aren't aware of it,
the "Irish cream liqueur" concoctions are fake atholbrose, an old Scots drink.)
I ask because Bunratty is a castle outside Limerick. As a matter of fact,
I had my very first mead in the pub (Durty Nellie's) in the shadow of the
walls (1975). Hmm, I wonder what the management of Durty Nellie's thinks of
this, assuming they know? Probably think it's another perversion of American
yuppie taste. (I understand the tourists have crowded out the locals, over
the past decade, anyway.)
What scares me is that, with the proper labeling, you probably could
trademark, as per the example, "Beere." Ah, weird labelling laws! And
for the sake of the record, I'm familiar with real adulterated
beverages of the 17th century, and "meade" is an authentic recipe---for
a form of "bastard spiced wine" being drunk in Scotland. Wasn't called
"mead" or "meade" though. A lot of folks, back then, thought it was a
fraudulent concoction, and an attempt to palm off bad wine by sweetening
and flavoring it. Amazing how little changes, over the centuries! So what
do we mead-fanciers do? Vote with your pocketbook. Don't buy it.
--Jane Beckman (Jilara) jane@swdc.stratus.com
------------------------------
Subject: Wine
From: "Larry Lynch-Freshner" <Larry_Lynch-Freshner@taligent.com>
Date: 21 Oct 1993 10:31:04 -0800
Wine
This is in response to COYOTE's wine questions. I am posting here because I
thought my comments might be of general interest.
Firstly, a good place to go for wine related info is the new
rec.crafts.winemaking.
Most native grapes in this country are called Fox grapes. That is, they have
a flavor called foxy. I can't describe it, but if you have the chance to
taste a foxy grape like Concord next to a wine grape, like Pinot Noir, you
will taste it. This foxy flavor isn't 'bad', but is considered undesirable in
wine. Read: try it. If you like it, fine, but don't expect much - think of
making a mead with wildflower honey instead of a single bossem honey.
What to do with them. Do you want red wine? if so, gently crush them in a
container and put them, seeds, skins and all into your fermenter. Try to
remove the stems, but don't get paranoid about it. Ferment in a warm place,
pushing the skins down into the juice 2-3 times a day. Ferment until the
skins drop on their own, then get a press and squeeze the juice from the
skins. If you want to make white wine, go straight to the press. It will
crush, and press all the juice out at one pass. Ferment in a cool place.
Don't ever cook the juice. Use meta as you would in a mead.
To gently crush the grapes (when not using the press yet), try putting them in
a bucket in small quantities and crushing with a bat or 2x4 end-on, or (yes,
really) wash your feet... The juicer will go to far...
Enjoy!
Larry
------------------------------
Subject: "Honeyjack?"
From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 11:56:32 -0500 (UTC -05:00)
Hey, all.
By way of introduction, I'm a grad student at KU specializing in
forensic anthropology: postmortem ID of (more or less) skeletonized remains.
Got into mead making through homebrewing a few years back. For a house
warming gift, a friend of mine made a bottle opener out of a canine femur.
Do my friends know me, or what?
On another forum when cider was being discussed, someone mentioned
that you could make applejack by freezing the cider, leaving a core of
apple-flavored alcohol in the center. I've had applejack made in an Appa-
lachian still and it was wonderful. Has anyone ever tired this freezing
technique with mead? Somehow, I'm suspicious. Gayre notes on page 185 that
one could make mead brandy by proper distillation. This seems the way to
go if'n you're interested in strong honey liquor and don't want to pop
for a bottle of Barenjager. Of course, this is all terribly illegal, but do any
of you have any "friends" who have tried honey distillation/concentration?
Matt Rowley
Dept of Anthropology
University of Kansas
rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
------------------------------
Subject: Best place for storage?
From: Mark Ingalls <marking@microsoft.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 07:26:55 TZ
I have recently moved my first batch of mead from the carboy
to several bottles and now I am wondering where to store it.
Does temperature for storage matter? How about movement? I
am moving to a new house in a month, will this disturb the mead?
My second question has to do with labels. I want to eventually
give some mead to relatives as gifts and I would like to have
a nice label on the bottle when I do it. My local homebrew
supply store has some, but I was wondering if anyone out there
has a label template for a word processor or graphics application.
Thanks,
--
Mark Ingalls
------------------------------
Subject: Mead recipe from 170
From: Ralph Snel <ralph@astro.lu.se>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 9:27:36 MET
From:
Geheym der Wynen ontdekt
of
Kunst om alle Blaauwe, Rosse, Lange Verwaayde
en andere onzuyvere Wynen, binnen korten tyd,
zonder mangel schoon te maaken.
Printed by Reynier van Kessel,
in 's GraavenHaag
1730
RECEPT
Om MEE te maaken
Neemt 90. stoop Regenwater, en 10. stoop Honing, die
schoon en wit is, doch, indien gy geen witte kondt bekomen, neemt
Roode die goed is, dat zaamen in de Ketel over het vuur gedaan,
en laat het 20. stoop inkooken, schuymt het wel, doet daar dan
in een ons gestoote Yrias en een paar handen vol Hop, dat moogt
gy alles met vier pond gesneeden lange Rozynen, in een zakje, in
de ketel hangen, beproeft dan met een Ey, zoo het daar op
dryft is het genoeg, laat het dan bynaa koud worden, doet het
dan in een Vat daar eerst Spaansche Wyn in geweest is, of ten
minste met een pint van dezelve het Vat toegemaakt, laat het
zakje met Rozynen mede zoo lang in de Wyn kooken tot dezelve
genoeg is, wringt dan dezelve zak schoon uyt, zoo bekomt
de Mee daar van een smaak als of het goede Spaansche Wyn
was, doet dan wat gist in het Vat, en laat het op een warme
plaats staan, dat hy wel uytgewerkt is: dit moet ten minste
een half jaar leggen
Translation/interpretation:
Recipe to make mead.
Take 90 stoop (1 stoop equals about half an imperial galon) rainwater
and 10 stoop clean and white honey. If you could not get any white
honey take good red honey instead. Put that together in a kettle over
the fire and let it boil down 20 stoop. When (or if, I'm not quite sure)
it's foaming a lot add one ounce crushed Yrias (dunno really what that
is) and a few handsfull of hops that you put in a little bag with 4 pounds
of cut long raisins and hang in the kettle. Test with an egg, if it floats
it is enough (else you should boil longer). Let it get almost cold. Put
it in a barrel that had spanish wine in it before, or at least add a pint
of spanish wine. Let the bag with raisins cook in the wine as well untill
it is enough and squize the last liquid from the bag. Like this the
mead will get a taste as if it was a good spanish wine.
Then add yeast to the barrel and let it stand in a warm place untill it
has stopped working: this should lie at least half a year.
Remarks:
-White honey implies crystallized honey. I think the red honey
means liquid.
-Boil a long time.
-The egg-test (tried it at home) gives a SG of 1.100 or higher,
260 gram sugar per liter. After complete fermentation this
would give about 14% alcohol (by volume) or higher. Assuming
that the yeasts of those days were not as alcohol resistant
as they are now and the fact that we're dealing with honey with
just a bit of raisins as nutrients, my guess is that the alcohol
percentage would be around 11 or 12% with a sweet taste.
-Let it mature for at least half a year (!)
-The book I quoted from was printed in 1730. I have however seen
recipes in a book from 1520 that are in name identical to other
recipes from the 1730 book. In 1730 there are however quite a few
extra ingredients to make the (in this case distilled) beverage
look and taste better. So I think the original mead recipe could
easily be from before 1500, possibly without the hops and yrias,
but the technique of making it is most likely identical, passed
on from master to apprentice over those two centuries.
Ralph
ralph@astro.lu.se
------------------------------
Subject: Bunratty (Non-)Meade
From: franc!kstiles@woomera.att.com
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 12:43:29 EDT
I received a bottle of this as a gift soon after I
started making mead as a hobby. It's basically a
cheap white wine with cheap honey thrown in, sold
in a nice ceramic bottle. Just for fun, I measured
the S.G. It was something over 1.040. Nobody in my
house liked it; some could not drink more than a sip.
My synopsis: Over-sweet Yuppie swill.
-Kevin
------------------------------
Subject: pyment, my favorite!
From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 1993 11:46:34 U
Subject: Time:11:37 AM
OFFICE MEMO pyment, my favorite! Date:10/21/93
From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>
>Now- what is the best thing to do with these buggers:
1. Mash them with a conical fruit juicer- manual
2. I have an electric juicer- great for peaches, but don't
want to put seed through it, nor is it needed I'd guess.
3. Get a 2x4 or baseball bat busy and mush them to a pulp.
>I know I'll have to take spec. grav. and acid readings before I know
>what I'm working with. One book says adjust the sp.gr. to 1.095.
>Acid depends on the type of wine- depends on the type of grape...????
>so I'll shoot for about 60%. I suppose I'll see how much juice I get,
>then decide how much wine I'm making. I could supplement with sugar
>and or honey if needed. I do plan to make a "false wine"- mead from
>the skins and pulp.
>oh... 4. Use a seive/mesh style colander and "smush" them through.
>Question: Is really...How should I deal with the grapes?
It sounds as if your ideas are sound-I would recommend #3 which will
allow you to ferment ON the skins which is what I ususlly do (get out
the 2x4, a Louisville Slugger or your SO's clean feet). Or see how much
juice you have and take it from there. OG of 1.095 will make a dry
pyment due to the high EtOH tolerance of any self-respecting wine yeast
and the abundance ot nutrients in the grapes. If your acid is only 60%
(0.6) dry is good.
I make pyment every year as a second wine (I don't like the term "false
wine" "true pyment" is more like it, don't you agree?). For reds, the
grapes are mashed and fermented about 7-10 days on the skins, seeds, and
some stems. After I collect the free run juice, I add honey to what is
left and let it go for another week or so and then press. By then the
skins are pretty much decomposed and I have in the past just strained
them out. A few rackings takes care of the residual junk.
In Michigan the grapes struggle to ripen and consequently have HIGH acid
levels. Consistantly in the 1.0-1.1 range!!! This lends itself to the
production of either a dry/tart or sweet/tart beverage. Although I
prefer dry wine, it is difficult to make here without stripping or malo-
lactic fermentation. It is easier to make sweet/tart pyment. A residual
sugar of 2-3% seems to work well with acids in the 1.0 range at least
for my tastes.
Hope this helps. Hey! how is your milk and honey mead?, I think I'll go check
mine.
DanMcC
------------------------------
Subject: This'n'That (incl. recipe)
From: "Dave Polaschek" <DaveP@county.lmt.mn.org>
Date: 22 Oct 1993 9:53:03CST
Got a few things to cover.
First is a reply to Dick Dunn's comments about the "MEADE" he found. I
haven't seen this particular brand, but I've seen similar things.
There's a liquor store here in the Twin Cities that has a "Buck Bin"
of single bottles of weird beers, etc. that they've managed to
get from their distributor, and were too goofy to hope to sell a 6-pack of
to anyone. The most interesting thing I've found so far was "Biere Des
Duides", which came in a round-bottomed metal "bottle" with a flip-top,
similar to a Grolsch bottle. It had some percentage of honey, as I recall,
but it definitely wasn't a mead. I've seen other similar things, and while
they're seldom real meads, they're often worth a try if you can get 'em
without spending all your money. You might try suggesting a similar
sampler bin to your local merchant, explaining that you (and enough other
people to make it worthwhile) don't mind trying new things, but don't
want to make a major investment in something unknown.
Next is a query about megelthins (mead with milk added to the list of
ingredients). (Sure hope I got the name right). Anyone tried to make one
of these? They're mentioned briefly in Charlie Papazian's "Brewing Mead"
in the other book that gets prepended (entitled "Wassail!"), but there
are no specifics, and I'm wondering if anyone has any tips before I go
striking out blindly into new territory.
Recipe time! This is something I whipped up last winter, and I sure wish
more of it had survived until now (I'm down to my last 3 bottles, and it
just keeps getting better)
Crazy-Good Mead
---------------
Ingredient list:
10 lbs light clover honey
2 lbs blueberries
1 gallon apple cider (pasteurized)
1/2 oz Saaz hops
yeast nutrient to instructions on package
1 packs champagne yeast (I used WYeast on this one)
Directions:
Bring 2.5-3 gallons of water to a boil. Add honey, bring to a boil again.
Toss in the yeast nutrient and hops and boil for about a half-hour,
skimming off any scum that forms on the surface during the boil. Put
berries into a hop-boiling bag. Lower heat to a very low simmer, and
toss in the berries, mashing the bag around to break them up some.
Continue to steep the fruit for about 10-15 minutes while you get the
fermenter ready. Put the gallon of apple cider into the fermenter when
the boil is about done, and then add the hot wort. Add water to bring
the total up to 5 gallons. Let cool, and pitch yeast.
Starting Gravity: 1.075; Final Gravity: 0.965! Alcohol content:23 proof
When the gravity has dropped below 0.980, bottle and wait. 3 months wait
makes for eminently drinkable stuff, but the longer you can wait, the
better. Final color is a light delicate pink, not unlike some white
zins, so you may want to store bottles on their head and then freeze the
neck to get the sediment out of the bottles, but I've just been very
careful decanting into glasses with pretty good results.
davep@county.lmt.mn.org----------------------------Dave Polaschek, software guy
AppleLink:LASERMAX-------------------------LaserMaster Corp.,7156 Shady Oak Rd,
ATTNet:6129439204------------------------------------Eden Prairie, MN 55344 USA
------------------------------
Subject: Comments on Digest relocation
From: gowen@cs.tufts.edu (Gregory Owen)
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 11:58:54 EDT
I'd like to start by thanking John Dilley for the work
he has put in keeping the digest running, and Dick Dunn for
taking up the banner. Thanks a lot, guys!
Since the digest is changing locations, I figured now was
a good time for a suggestion. Now that there is a newsgroup for
wine which allows mead questions, how do people feel about gate-ing
the digest to rec.crafts.winemaking? That would cut down on the
digest's mail distribution, as usenet readers could get it that way.
The precedent for this is homebrew digest; they've been gatewaying
to rec.crafts.brewing for as long as I've been reading.
This is just a suggestion, and we'd have to check and make
sure no one on rec.crafts.winemaking objected. But I thought I'd
say it just to see what people thought.
On a wetter note, my first mead is still in secondary.
It just sits there looking golden 8). Anticipation!
Wassail!
Greg Owen
gowen@cs.tufts.edu
------------------------------
Subject: Sterilisation
From: dbmartin@acacia.itd.uts.edu.au (-s90064445-d.martin-ele-60-)
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 12:43:57 EST
Greetings All
I am a novice mead brewer (my very first batch is bubbling away
nicely even as i type), I have however run into a rather unexpected problem.
I have used sodium metabisulphite to sterilise my equipment, and
campden(sp?) tablets, which i am lead to believe are a sulphur dioxide tablet,
to sterilise the must. However my girlfriend is asmatic and just coming within
a few hundred yards of the tight;ly sealed bags of said substances is enough to
send her reaching for the medication. So my question is this - are there any
alternatives to sodium metabisulphite and sulphur dioxide?? I realise that I
could boil the must to sterilise and avoid the SO2 but the book I am using
(making mead by two authors whose names escape me at the moment) advises against
i.
Any suggestions??
Many Thanks in advance
The Hippy
Alias Dave B Martin
dbmartin@acacia.itd.uts.edu.au
------------------------------
Subject: Bunratty Non-Mead(e)
From: alchemedia@aol.com
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:48:25 EDT
Yep, I've tried Bunratty's stateside version of mead. Suggestion: Don't
waste your money.
I don't know if there are import restrictions or something on stuff coming
from Ireland, but this "Meade" is *nothing* like the Bunratty mead you can
get at the Bunratty castle (I had a wonderful time getting tipsy on that
stuff). The stateside faux mead is like some bad, thick white wine with too
many spices in it. It's flavor is hard to describe, but it is more like a
cordial than anything else. Practically sticks to the sides of the glass.
Ick. My wife and I both tried it. Resounding two thumbs down.
And yes, I *do* find it disturbing that these folks are trying to pass this
stuff off as mead, even though it ain't. "Wine with honey and herbs added."
Methinks not.
I was just bummed to find out that it wasn't the real Bunratty mead. So if
you run into it stateside and spelled "Meade," don't bother.
--alchemedia.aol.com
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #230
