Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Mead Lovers Digest #0358
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #358, 23 October 1994
From: mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com
Mead Lover's Digest #358 23 October 1994
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
re: AMA "archives" -- a simple question (Dick Dunn)
Clovegilly, pt.1 (Joyce Miller)
Rundells Walnut Mead (historic) (Jane Beckman)
Pumpkin Mead (BrewerLee@aol.com)
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead-lovers@eklektix.com.
Use mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com for subscribe, unsubscribe, and admin
requests. When subscribing, please include your name and a good address
in the message body unless you're sure your mailer generates them.
There is an FTP archive of the digest on sierra.stanford.edu in pub/mead.
If you have email access but not ftp, it will accept "listserv" requests.
Send email with message "help" to listserv@sierra.stanford.edu.
------------------------------
Subject: re: AMA "archives" -- a simple question
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 19 Oct 94 00:38:09 MDT (Wed)
Steven Rezsutek <S.Rezsutek@baloo.gsfc.nasa.gov> asked:
[joining AMA]...The ad states that for $65, one can
> have a copy of "everything we've ever printed".
>
> So, are there any long-time members who can comment on whether this is
> a virtual gold mine of information not to be passed up, purely of historic
> interest, or somewhere in between?...
I put it somewhere in between. It IS rather thin for the amount of money
it costs. Yes, I understand that this stuff had to be reprinted, that it's
going to be limited in quantity and hence expensive to copy, that there's a
lot of nuisance-work in putting it together...but it's *still* rather ex-
pensive. At a glance, it comes up to a generous half-inch of letter-size
newsletters, more now that there have been some glossy issues of the maga-
zine (but note that at least one of those has become a freebie in homebrew
shops). The cost was less when they first offered the package; I think it
was more like $40some, which was pricey for what you got at the time.
I bought it and I don't regret having done so...but then, I've got more
money than brains (which is not to say I'm rich!;-). I found it inter-
esting because it gives some sort of picture of where the American Mead
Ass'n has gone over the years. If you want that, buy the package. If you
just want mead techniques and recipes, you can buy all the current books
(I'd get Morse, Gayre/Papazian, and Acton/Duncan) and still have money
left over for ingredients for a couple batches of mead.
---
Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA
...Simpler is better.
------------------------------
Subject: Clovegilly, pt.1
From: jmiller@genome.wi.mit.edu (Joyce Miller)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 12:40:05 -0400
Kenelme Digbie, 1669:
Sack with Clove-gilly flowers.
If you will make a Cordial Liquor of Sack with Clove-gillyflowers,
you must do thus. Prepare your Gillyflowers, as is said before, and put
them into great double glass-bottles, that hold two gallons a piece, or
more; and put to every gallon of Sack, a good half pound of the wiped and
cut flowers, putting in the flowers first, and then the Sack upon them.
Stop the glasses exceeding close, and set them in a temperate Cellar. Let
them stand so, till you see that the Sack hath drawn out all the principal
tincture from them, and that the flowers begin to look pa?sh; (with an eye
of pale, or faint in Colour) Then pour the Sack from them, and throw away
the exhausted flowers, or distil a spirit from them; For if you let them
remain longer in the Sack, they will give an earthy tast to them. You may
then put the tincted Sack into fit bottles for your use, stopping them
very close. But if the season of the flowers be not yet past, your Sack
will be better, if you put it upon new flowers, which I conceive will not
be the worse, but peradventure the better, if they be a little dried in the
shade. If you drink a Glass or two of this sack at a meal, you will find
it a great Cordial.
Upon better consideration; I conceive the best way of making
Hydromel with Clove-gillyflowers, is thus: Boil your simple Liquor to it's
full height (with three parts of water to one of Honey,) take a small
parcel out, to make a strong infusion of flowers, pouring it boyling hot
upon the flowers in earthen vessels. If you will easily draw out the
tincture in fourteen or sixteen hours infusion; otherwise you may quicken
your liquor with a parcel of Sack. In the mean time make the great
quantity of Liquor work with yest. When it hath almost done fermenting,
but not quite, put the infusion to it warm, and let it ferment more if it
will. When that is almost done, put to it a bag with flowers to hang in
the bung.
I conceive that Hydromel made with Juniper-berries (first broken
and bruised) boiled in it, is very good. Adde also to it Rosemary and
Bayleaves.
-end first half-
------------------------------
Subject: Rundells Walnut Mead (historic)
From: jane@swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 09:53:21 PDT
Thought you folks would appreciate an 18th century recipe for Walnut-Leaf (!!)
Mead, from an antique cookbook I just picked up for my collection (why should
Digby have all the credit, right?).
Maria Rundell's Walnut Mead
To every gallon of water put three pounds and a half of honey, boil them
together three quarters of an hour; to every gallon of liquor put about two
dozen walnut leaves, pour your liquor boiling hot upon them, let them stand
all night, then take the leaves out and put in a spoonful of yest, and let
it work two or three days, then make it up, let it stand three months, and
then bottle it.
Jilara [jane@swdc.stratus.com]
------------------------------
Subject: Pumpkin Mead
From: BrewerLee@aol.com
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 23:04:56 -0400
To: mead-lovers@eklektix.com
From: BrewerLee@aol.com (Lee Bussy)
Subject:Pumpkin Mead
Chuck Stringer requested in Digest #357 a pumpkin mead recipe.
This is one that has turned out quite well for me in the past.
The Great Pumkin
4 lbs Pumpkin meat
7 pts Water
2-1/4 lb Honey
2-1/2 tsp Acid Blend
1/4 tsp Tannin
1 tsp Yeast nutrient
1 Campden tablet (crushed)
1 pkg Wine yeast
Wash pumpkin thoroughly before cutting open. Remove seeds and
stringy material. Peel skin. Grind or mash pumpkin into nylon
straining bag. (Note: Extraction may be aided by freezing the
pumpkin overnight to break down the structure of the fruit.)
Keeping all pulp in straining bag, squeeze juice into primary
fermenter, tie top and leave bag in primary fermenter.
Stir in all other ingredients except yeast. Cover and allow to
sit overnight. After 24 hours add yeast. Cover primary.
Stir daily and press pulp lightly to aid extraction.
After 3-5 days (SG should be below 1.040) lightly press juice
from bag and remove bag. Rack off of sediment into glass
secondary and fix airlock.
Some people add traditional pumpkin pie spices to this but I
feel it is a wonderfull mead without any such additions. Darker
honeys such as Mesquite do very well in this recipe.
This does much better as a still mead.
Hope some of you enjoy this.
-Lee Bussy
BrewerLee@aol.com
lee.bussy@twsubbs.twsu.edu
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #358
