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Mead Lovers Digest #0692
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #692, 17 August 1998
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #692 17 August 1998
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: mead in poetry; Robin Hood's mead ("Tidmarsh Major")
Tupelo Honey (Charles Hudak)
Re: New Guy Comments ("Marc Shapiro")
Re: Floral Wines & Meads (Cindy Renfrow)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998 (dennis key)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998 (Bill)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998 (dennis key)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998 (dennis key)
New Meaders, Bulk honey, etc. (Charles Hudak)
Re: gnats? (Peter Miller)
Sanitizing tablets (Andrew Barnett)
kill dem gnats! (Samuel Mize)
Questions galore (JGORMAN@steelcase.com)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998 (Cam Lay)
Brother Adam / Orchard honey / Lavender mead (zemo)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #684, 5 July 1998 (AMY E CAPRILE)
Re: Various topics (Scott Murman)
IMPORTANT--How to have your requests handled (Mead Lover's Digest)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: mead in poetry; Robin Hood's mead
From: "Tidmarsh Major" <tidmarsh@pop.mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 10:19:51 +0000
Dan McFeely passes on some great information about an article that
describes cold extraction of flower aromatics for meads and wines,
and concludes with quotations that the author included.
Unfortunately, these quotations are a little misleading; the "mead"
used here is not the word meaning the fermented honey beverage we
all know and love, but rather is the poetic term meaning meadow.
Already by the time of Thomas Carew (early 17th century) mead had
begun to pass from everyday life and was reserved primarily for
royalty and nobility, and certainly by the '20s it had ceased to be a
usual beverage, having been supplanted by wine and beer. Mead had
already lost its place as a source of poetic metaphor.
======================
Gary Snydock asks about mead in the time of Robin Hood and Friar
Tuck.
My dissertation (as if you couldn't guess I'd had too much
book-learnin' by my last reply) concerns a 14th-Century East Anglian
manuscript that contains a recipe for mead. In short, the text
instructs the meadmaker to boil 1 gallon of honey (about 12 lbs) with
4 gallons of water, cool, and add to the dregs from a batch of the
finest ale and stir it well, let sit in a cool place for a few days,
and pour it off the dregs and serve it forth. I posted a more
complete translation that more closely follows the original a few
years ago; it should be available in the archives.
Also worth noting is the recipe in Constance Hieatt's edition of _The
Forme of Cury_, which is also a 14th century work. THe recipe there
goes into much greater detail about extracting the honey from the
comb and provides less detail in its description of meadmaking.
Finally, there is also a contemporary Bavarian recipe in _Daz Buch
von Guter Spise_ that is available on the web (though I don't know
the URL). Unlike these 2 English recipes, it calls for hops.
Cheers,
Tidmarsh Major, Birmingham, Alabama
tidmarsh@mindspring.com
"Bot we must drynk as we brew,
And that is bot reson."
-The Wakefield Master, Second Shepherds' Play
------------------------------
Subject: Tupelo Honey
From: Charles Hudak <cwhudak@home.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 09:08:08 -0700
Greetings Meadlings,
I just got back from a Blues festival in Clarksdale MI. I was within arms
reach of Tupelo but sadly, time did not allow for a jaunt farther east. I'd
really love to get ahold of some Tupelo Honey. If there is anyone out there
who lives closeby and can get ahold of any of this, please let me know. I'd
like 15-20 lbs. I'll pay for the honey and shipping or we can do a honey
swap. I can get some great local honeys for a buck pound, bulk: orange
blossom, wild cherry, mtn flower, sage, eucalyptus, buckwheat, etc.,
depending on availability.
Now that I bring it up, I'd love to get a hold of some other unique honeys
like mesquite as well.
Interested? Let me know.
C--
Charles Hudak
cwhudak@home.com
Living large on the left coast.......
------------------------------
Subject: Re: New Guy Comments
From: "Marc Shapiro" <mshapiro@mail.inetone.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 12:08:01 +0000
Gary Snydock wrote:
> I have a question for you experienced guys, How did they make mead
> in the old days? You know, back in the days of Friar Tuck and Robin
> Hood. Do any of you in your files have any old documents or recipes
> that the original mead makers used?
Get a copy of "The Closet of Sir Kenelme Digby Knight Opened". It
was originally printed in 1669 and has lots of mead, melomel and
metheglin recipes (as well as a cookbook in a second section). If
you search the Web you can find some of the recipes there, but not
all of them.
So far as I know "The Closet...Opened" is still out of print and you
will probably have to get it through interlibrary loan (unless you
are lucky enough to live somewhere where a copy actually exists).
The edition that I got hold of was edited by Anne Macdonell and
published by Philip Lee Warner in London in 1910.
Also, you can check my web page at the URL in my sig. In the section
"Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages, the chapter on Wine and Mead
has a few recipes. The first two mead recipes are from "The
Closet...Opened" and the third is from "The Country Housewife",
printed in 1762.
> P.S. What does 'TIA' stand for?
"Thanks In Advance"
HTH
Wassail!
Marc Shapiro m_shapiro@bigfoot.com
Visit 'The Meadery' at:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/
"If you drink melomel every day, you will live to be 150 years old,
unless your wife shoots you."
- --Dr. Ferenc Androczi, Winemaker of the Little Hungary Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Floral Wines & Meads
From: renfrow@skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 14:50:14 -0400
Dan McFeeley wrote:
>
>I happened to spot an article in the summer 1997 issue of _The Herb
>Quarterly_ titled "Brewing with Flowers" by Patricia Telesco, on the use
>of flowers to enhance the making of wines and meads. <snip>
>Rather than using hot or boiling water to extract the aromatics, the
>recommended method is to make a floral water by steeping the gathered
>flowers in cold water,
<snip>
>
> Be she fairer than the day,
> or the flow'ry meads in May,
> If she be not so to me,
> What care I how fair she be?
>
> - Fair Virtue, George Wither 1922
<snip>
(replied privately, but posted at Dan's request)
Hello!
I hate to be a party pooper, but in this context the word 'mead' means
'meadow'.
Also, I have to disagree with her method of cold steeping the flowers.
When I use flowers, I infuse them & then strain them out, & use the
liquid. Leaving the flowers in the primary invites mold, since the flowers
tend to float on the surface. Some older recipes that use flowers steep
them in wine, but first sew the flowers into a bag that is weighted down.
Regards,
Cindy Renfrow
renfrow@skylands.net
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"
http://www.alcasoft.com/renfrow/
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998
From: dennis key <dione@unm.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 13:38:30 -0600 (MDT)
Re: quick meads. In my experience, it is possible to make a mead that is
quite pleasantly drinkable at bottling. (Pause to duck thrown mazers! ;-)
However, the few bottles of that particular batch were truly the ambrosia
of the gods in three years. OTOH, my green chile mead is about three
years old and is barely beginning to enter the "drinkable" stage. It is
indeed an art and age ALWAYS improves your product.
Never Thirst,
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998
From: Bill <perimage@ripco.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 14:41:29 -0500
In MLD #691, Dan McFeeley wrote:
<snip>
> The article also had verses from different poems quoted along the margins,
> such as . . .
>
> Be she fairer than the day,
> or the flow'ry meads in May,
> If she be not so to me,
> What care I how fair she be?
>
> - Fair Virtue, George Wither 1922
>
> or
>
> I met a lady in the meads
> Full beautiful, a faery's child;
> Her hair was long, her foot was light,
> and her eyes were wild.
>
> - La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats 1819
>
> or
>
> I, in these flowery meads would be;
> these crystal springs should solace me.
>
> - Thomas Carew
>
> For me, these poems catch reflections of an older tradition of meadmaking,
> when mead was a part of everyday life and culture. Seems a shame that the
> tradition has diminished or been marginalized to the extent that today's
> poets no longer draw on the virtures of mead to weave their metaphors.
>
> "Brew on brethren of Bee, Barley and Vine" - John Wylie "Coyote"
Well, I rather doubt that these poets were actually referring to mead
(honey wine). The way these poems appear to me, the poets were
exercising poetic license with the word _meadow_, shortening it to one
syllable to improve the scansion of their verses. If you read the poems
substituting _meadows_ for _meads_, you will see that they make a lot
more sense that way. Few people would ever speak of being *in* a mead,
but being in a meadow is a pretty common image.
Bill
- --
@====================================================================
@Motto of the _Order of the Garter_: "Honi soit qui mal y pense."
@Motto of Minsky's _Star and Garter_: "Yoni sois quay valide penes."
@ICQ: 1-424-1229
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998
From: dennis key <dione@unm.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 13:43:17 -0600 (MDT)
GNATS! I hate 'em! I think they're actually fruit flies, at least my
critters are. They come in on bananas from the supermarket. I've found
that depriving them of any source of food (I refrigerate my kitchen
compost until it goes outside) and laying about several fly traps works
fairly well. Fly traps are like mason jars with a one-way entry for the
flies. A splash of beer in the bottom is quite attractive to the
critters. Your melomel would work even better, but I'd hate to think even
a drop of you efforts would go to bait a flytrap.
Never Thirst,
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998
From: dennis key <dione@unm.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 13:47:12 -0600 (MDT)
TIA is either a Transient Ischemic Attack (non-permanent, brief stroke) or
Thanks In Advance. I think it's the latter in this case ;-).
Never Thirst,
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: New Meaders, Bulk honey, etc.
From: Charles Hudak <cwhudak@home.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 12:51:24 -0700
Gary writes:
> I am an experienced beekeeper who has finally decided to turn some of my
product
>into mead for my own enjoyment.
Welcome to our humble abode. BTW (by the way) are you or any of the other
apiarists out there willing to sell/ship bulk honey to MLD subscribers? I
have a local beekeep who sells me bulk honey at about $1/lb. but I'm
looking for unique honeys that he doesn't have, e.g. varietals such as
mesquite, avocado, etc.. I, for one, would be very interested if you could
come close to that price + shipping and the cost of bulk container for
~15-20lbs.
>I have a question for you experienced guys, How did they make mead in the
>old days? You know, back in the days of Friar Tuck and Robin Hood. Do any
>of you in your files have any old documents or recipes that the original
>mead makers used? I would be interested in reading these.
I don't have any historical references but I imagine the following
scenario: Drained combs are rinsed in warm water and the resulting liquor
(much lower in s.g. by our standards) is left out to ferment. Natural
yeasts in the honey and the lack of heat treatment ensure that a viable
population can rapidly begin fermenting. The slow onset of fermentation
would encourage slight bacterial growth resulting in an acidic product,
though the natural acidity of the must would limit this growth so that the
resulting acidity was fairly light.
I'm sure that there are some great recipes on some of the mead home pages.
Remember, though, that if you heat the honey to allow easier manipulation
(as most apiarists do) to even 130F, you will kill or severly weaken the
natural yeasts in the honey and have a tough time getting a natural ferment
started.
>P.S. What does 'TIA' stand for?
Thanks in advance....
C--
Charles Hudak
cwhudak@home.com
Living large on the left coast.......
------------------------------
Subject: Re: gnats?
From: Peter Miller <peter@perpetualocean.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 09:32:06 +1000
>From: <RACEGT6@aol.com>
>Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 10:28:45 EDT
>I was not told about this until I spotted spilled mel and a few gnats
>hovering
>about upon my return from a long trip.
>Now, after last weeks cleanup, I have more gnats than ever!
Hi Charlie,
I'm no entomologist but it sounds more like fruit-fly than gnats. They
are attracted to the C02 from your fermenting mead, and then of course to
the sweet liquid itself. If this is the case, you need to get rid of them
as soon as you can, as they carry the bacteria that will turn your mead
into vinegar - not very desirable.
My advice? Clean up all the spilled liquid, remove as much of your
brewing gear as you can and spray lightly with a pyrethrum based
insecticide.
I only suggest this because you seem to have a LOT of insects. It's not
unusual to have one or two fruit flies hovering about. As long as
everything is clean and airtight they will probably not give you any
trouble under normal circumstances.
Peter.
<peter@perpetualocean.com> http://www.perpetualocean.com
------------------------------
Subject: Sanitizing tablets
From: Andrew Barnett <ajb07308@efortress.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 08:30:38 -0400
I was wondering if anyone has used drinking water tablets, the kind you
take camping to clean up stream water, as a sanitizer. I'm thinking
mainly of using them to soak fruit overnight before I make a melomel.
Are there any problems with a taste being imparted to the finished
product?
The tablets I have each contain 16.7% Tetraglycine Hydroperiodide, which
converts to 6.68% Titratable iodine (and I have no clue what that means
:). You use one tablet per quart or liter of water.
The bottle says the tablets are for germicidal use, would that mean wild
yeast was still a problem? If that's the case, would these tablets be
good to clean up an infected batch (assuming the taste factor isn't
bad)?
I'm hesitant to try this myself as this will be my first melomel, and
first mead in general -- I want it to be good! Maybe for my next
batch...
- --
========================================================================
Andrew Barnett ajb0730@rit.edu
========================================================================
------------------------------
Subject: kill dem gnats!
From: Samuel Mize <smize@mail.imagin.net>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 07:41:19 -0500 (CDT)
Greetings,
I believe my prior reply got killed.
Charlie (RACEGT6@aol.com) asks about getting rid of gnats without
using insecticide.
We keep birds, and have trouble with moths that ride along in larval
form in their seed. Birds are sensitive to airborne insecicides, so
we avoid those.
You should be able to get yellow fly strips at a feed store. There
are two kinds -- the kind with insecticide (like Shell No-Pest strips)
and a kind that is just sticky, and has something that attracts bugs
(either a sweet smell or a pheromone, I think). We use the
no-insecticide ones. They work well, although it seems to take a day
or two for the bugs to discover them.
Best,
Sam Mize
- --
Samuel Mize -- smize@imagin.net (home email) -- Team Ada
Fight Spam: see http://www.cauce.org/ \\\ Smert Spamonam
------------------------------
Subject: Questions galore
From: JGORMAN@steelcase.com
Date: 13 Aug 1998 17:37:30 -0400
I want to try something different with my meads. Would I get a relatively
sweet mead if I made up a must (about 2.5#/gal plus some fruit) and started
out with a sweet mead or ale yeast and then finished off with a more alcohol
tolerant yeast like champagne or wine yeast?
Add the second yeast a couple of months into the fermenting. Add
the more alcohol tolerant yeast to make sure fermentation is complete (no
bottle bombs.) Or would that much honey make a sweet mead? Would the wine
yeast finish everything off and "dry" it out or are the flavors from the
sweet mead yeast left there? Off the subject about wine. Are there method to
create a sweet fruit wine? Could you sulfite the prior to complete
fermentation and leave some residual sweet flavors and not effect the wine
with the sulfur? As you can probably tell, I don't care much for dry meads or
wines.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #691, 12 August 1998
From: Cam Lay <clay@mail.clemson.edu>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:30:35 -0400
Charlie wrote:
>I have a problem with gnats!
>Now, after last weeks cleanup, I have more gnats than ever! As all my
brewing
>supplies and equipment are in the basement, I am loathe to bomb the premises
>with an insecticide.
I'm an entomologist. First you should get the buggers identified. You can
try describing them to me (e-mail, of course) but a better option would be to
catch a few and take them to your local cooperative extension service office.
(One in every county, courtesy of your state's land-grant college, in the
phone book under "agriculture," most likely.) Once you know what they are
you
can plot strategy to control them. (If they're drain flies, for example,
you'll
take a different approach than if they're fungus gnats or fruit flies.)
There are several non-chemical control options:
1) Turn off all the lights, except one small one, and place a glue board
underneath it. The gnats will be attracted to the light and will get stuck
on the glue board. You can also do this with a small restaurant style
fly trap. Your local pest-control or restaurant supplier will carry them.
2) Clean, clean, clean. Try to clean often enough so that any eggs the
adults lay will not have enough time to develop before they're removed.
3) Treat some cardboard, away from your supplies, and place it around the
areas where the gnats hang out so they'll rest on it.
4) Chemical-control: once you've ID'd the critters, and can thus choose an
application method and formulation that'll work, cover your supplies and
have at it. Use a product like one of the pyrethroids that will break down
in a matter of hours and isn't particularly toxic to us mammals in the
first place.
Pesticides are dangerous tools, remember, just like most of the stuff in
your kitchen drawer. But you don't deprive yourself of the benefits of a
set of sharp knives just because people get hurt by them. Do you? ;-)
Regards,
Clemson University and its Department of Pesticide Regulation require me
to state that these opinions are mine alone and not necessarily those of
any part of the University or the DPR.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Take arms against a sea of troubles and, | "Saddle up."
by opposing, end them" --Wm. Shakespeare | --John Wayne
|
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regulation through education. Visit the DPR at http://dpr.clemson.edu/
------------------------------
Subject: Brother Adam / Orchard honey / Lavender mead
From: zemo <zemo@ameritech.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 11:41:10 -0500
I've been trying to obtain references - ie, URLs, books,
magazines, etc. - for information regarding Brother Adam
of Buckfast Abbey. Specifically, I'd like to simulate his
method of years-long primary ferments in oak barrels by
fermenting in a carboy with a handful of oak chips. I'm
planning to make a traditional mead, OG: 1100, rack it
onto the chips and forget about it for a couple of years.
I'm curious to know if anyone else has tried a method like
this - on purpose - and what kind of results they got. And
if anyone has info about Brother Adam, private email is OK
- - I'll post results.
- -------------------
A traditional mead that I made with 13 lbs of honey and
Lalvin K1V yeast is ready to be bottled. I obtained the
honey from Anderson's Orchard and Winery in Valparaiso, IN.
(219-464-4936, no affiliation yadablahblah) last summer.
Racked it a few times and let it clear on its own. I belive
I made a really nice mead (trying to be humble). Since the
honey was collected from bees in orchards containing apples,
peaches, pears, grapes, and who knows what else, the mead
has a natural, fruity taste and aroma. I've already started
another batch with this season's honey using Lalvin D-47.
- -------------------
I love lavender. I have a well established barrel of it
outside the brewery (read: SO's house). I have a recipe from
either Bees Lee's or Cat's Meow for lavender mead, but does
anyone have a tried and true recipe? I'm thinking of using
the cold extraction method posted in a recent MLD, since I've
been collecting the flowers. Please share your lavender mead
experiences with me.
Steve Holat - Ordinary, average brewer / Registered voter
Underhaus Brewery (& Meadery)
Batavia, IL
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #684, 5 July 1998
From: tigerna@juno.com (AMY E CAPRILE)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 17:00:48 -0600
I had expected that someone less outrageously busy would have already
noted this, but noone has so.... before you waste any honey on Star
Jasmine Mead... Star Jasmine is NOT a jasmine and at least some parts of
it (leaves, sap, etc.) are POISONOUS. I don't know about the flowers,
but this plant can be dangerous. Check it out before using in your mead.
If its it good enuff for the druids
Running nekkid thru the wuids
Drinking strange fermented fluids
Then its good enuff for me!!!!! ......Amy
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Various topics
From: Scott Murman <smurman@best.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 13:30:57 -0700 (PDT)
Timothy Green wrote:
> I for one have never had the extended fermentation times that others on this
> list have had.
We weren't discussing extended fermentation times, rather aging times
and the factors that influence them, though certainly a troublesome
ferment will affect the overall time.
> The point here is that if you tell a new brewer that he/she can make a mead
> that is drinkable in a month or two, they are more likely to continue on
> with the hobby as they taste the fruits of their wares.
Well you can tell a newbie many things, but I prefer to give them an
honest outlook from the start, and I think this definately helps them
continue with the hobby. One of the most important qualities a good
mead maker can have is patience. I tell people asking about making
wines and meads that they will usually require significant aging time.
I think this is important for them to understand from the beginning,
because it can require significant storage space and/or planning, and
also an understanding that their product will change with time.
As I mentioned in my first response to Sam's post, if you're looking
for something that you can drink in 2 weeks or 1 month, then a 10-20%
ABV drink is not the thing to be making, and I wouldn't guide anyone
to attempt it. If someone's just starting out, and they're not sure
they can wait 6 months to 1 year for a typical mead to round into
shape, then telling them it's *possible* that it will be great at 3
months, even though it's very unlikely, isn't going to help them, IMO.
Guiding them to understand that a lower strength drink that possibly
includes honey (or whatever ingredient) would be more suitable for
drinking within a month or two seems a much preferable approach to me.
Telling someone that patience and time are important factors in making
wine, is just the same as telling them that yeast, and honey or grape
variety, are important factors. At least to me.
SM
------------------------------
Subject: IMPORTANT--How to have your requests handled
From: mead@raven.talisman.com (Mead Lover's Digest)
Date: 17 Aug 98 00:17:07 MDT (Mon)
If you are sending a request to subscribe, unsubscribe, or change address
on the Mead-Lover's Digest, ***PLEASE***
* send it to mead-request@talisman.com (This is the difference between
sending mail to the subscription department and sending a letter to the
editor to appear in the opinions column. The op-ed page does not carry
requests to subscribe to a newspaper.)
* send ***ONLY*** plain text for what you want done. Fancy HTML goo gets
discarded. Think about it...if all you want to do is unsubscribe, I don't
need the request centered in bold blue large sans-serif text, and even if
the request got to me, I wouldn't want to wade through the crap to find
two words.
- ---
Mead-Lover's Digest mead-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #692
*******************************
