# MEAD!!!1 ZOMG

# A Blazey and Tyler Joint

# Overview
* Who are these people?
* What is mead?
* History
* Honey
* DIY – things, ingredients, process, time
* Demo!

<aside class="notes">
* This is an overview of what we intend to cover (at least partially) in this talk
</aside>

#
![Blazey and Tyler are two Muppets](images/BlazeyAndTyler.jpg)

<aside class="notes">
* We are Blazey and Tyler
* We are two Muppets who appeared in numerous skits on the children's television program Sesame Street
* In the picture: on the left, of course, is Blazey; on the right is Tyler shown with his famous rubber ducky
</aside>

# We're a big deal.

<aside class="notes">
* No really
</aside>

# ![](images/nhc-mead.jpg)

<aside class="notes">
* Brewing since 2007
* Making mead since 2011
* 2014 National Homebrew Competition gold medal for traditional mead
* 2018 Won the blue ribbon in the first round of the National Homebrew Competition for traditional mead (didn't place though)
</aside>

#
![Mead‽ Wæt](images/wat.jpg "Mead‽ Wæt")

<aside class="notes">
* Some of you may be thinking: Mead? What are we talking about
* Other's of you may be thinking: internet meme, nice...
* And still others might be thinking: old English joke, nice...
* This talk is for all of you, but if you're at the middle of the Venn diagram of all these circles: this talk is, I guess, especially for you
</aside>

# What is mead?
* Fermented Honey
* Water + honey + yeast + time = delicious mead
* "Traditional Mead"

# What is mead?
## Strength
* Hydromel (3.5-7.5% ABV)
* Standard (7.5-14% ABV)
* Sack (14-18% ABV)

# What is mead?
## Variants
* Metheglin: mead + spice
* Braggot: mead + beer
* Melomel: mead + fruit

# What is mead?
## Melomels
* Cyser: melomel with apples
* Pyment: melomel with grapes
* Berry and Stonefruit mead

# What is mead?
## Historical variations
* Polish sweet mead
* Ethiopian T'ej

<aside class="notes">
* East Africa and Poland are two places where mead production has been continual
* [Mead in Poland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_in_Poland) - sweet, polish honey, fruit often added
* [Tej](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tej) - flavored with buckhorn
</aside>

# What is mead?
## Other variants
* Bouchet: Boiled or burnt honey mead
* _Holy Cacao_: Meadowfoam honey, cocoa, vanilla beans
* _An Uncommon Disaster_: Mesquite honey, chipotle peppers, roasted pineapple
* Steve Fletty's sour barrel aged mesquite honey mead with agave

<aside class="notes">
* Bouchet: _The Complete Guide to Making Mead_ Piatz , pg 19
* [holy cacao](https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/holy-cacao-specialty-mead/)
* [uncommon disaster](https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/an-uncommon-disaster/)
* [mesquite agave](http://chopandbrew.com/recipes/mesquite-and-agave-mead-based-for-sour-barrel-aged-mead/)
</aside>

# So that's mead.

# History
* Mead's got lots of that

<aside class="notes">
* Mead is old. Super old. Older than written history. Mead is probably older
  than beer. The first recipe for beer (the Sumerian _Hymn to Ninkasi_ which
  doubles as a prayer to the goddess of fermentation) mentions honey as an
  ingredient (The Compleat Meadmaker, pg 7).
* The current best-guess as to when mead-making began is 8000 B.C. (The
  Compleat Meadmaker, pg 1/https://www.bjcp.org/mead/Mead_Study.pdf pg 13)
* The limiting factor for the widespread consumption of mead was likely the
  want of a water-tight container. This water-tight container would have
  likely predated the invention of pottery in 6000 B.C. (The Compleat
  Meadmaker, pg 5)
* This means that you don't need an agrarian society, nor do you need the
  ability to make pottery to make mead—as a result we start to see meadmaking
  develop independently all over the globe.
</aside>

# The Magic Bag Conjecture
* Paleolithic hunters
* Swelling
* ???
* Profit

<aside class="notes">
* Hunting party with waterskins in tow stumbles across a bee hive
* They add honey to their water
* Fermentation causes them to swell, leading to widespread amazement
* Drinking the swollen honey water leads to further amazement
* This, in essence, is the "magic bag" conjecture - Ken Schramm _The Compleat Meadmaker_, pg. 6
</aside>

#
## Historical Evidence
* Native Americans
* Africa
* Egypt

<aside class="notes">
* "honey among native Americans is obtained from bees' nests in hallow tree
  trunks; and the trough for brewing mead [...] is made from a hallowed-out
  tree trunk" - Edwina Palmer, _"Slit Belly Swamp": A Japanese Origin of
  Pleiades?_ pg 322
* "The most numerous of the rock paintings and drawing that bear testament to
  honey hunters are in Africa. [...] The African paintings and drawings depict
  a number of honey-related activities, including the use of smoke and fire to
  aid in the collection of honey" - Ken Schramm _The Compleat Meadmaker_, pg 7
* "Two jars form the tomb of Tutankhamen were labeled 'Honey of good quality'"
  - Ken Schramm _The Compleat Meadmaker_, pg 7
</aside>

# ![](images/bestfriends-big.jpg)

<aside class="notes">
This is the mythical prototype of the method actually recommended by Vergil for
the procreation of bees. It is given more in detail by Florentinus, who
professes to follow Democritus and Varro. A fat bullock, thirty months old, is
confined in a narrow chamber measuring ten cubits every way and pierced by a
door and four windows. He is then beaten till bones and flesh are alike
crushed, though blood must not be drawn. Next, every aperture in his body is
stuffed up with pitched rags, and he is laid on a heap of thyme. The door and
windows are closed with mud so as to exclude light and air. After three weeks
the chamber is thrown open, but care must be taken not to admit wind. When
aired enough the body is fastened up as before and left for ten days longer. On
the eleventh day clusters of bees will be found, while of the bullock nothing
remains but horns, bones, and hair. The central idea of this singular
superstition is that the life of the bull is perpetuated in the life of the
bees. - _The Bee in Greek Mythology_ - Arthur Bernard Cook, pg 10.
</aside>

#

![Don't Mess with Deez Beez](images/zeus-cave.jpg)

Greek and Norse Mythology

<aside class="notes">
* As an infant, Zeus was nursed in a cave by Melissa, daughter of King
  Melisseus, and was fed the honey of bees. "Melissa" is the Greek word for
  "bee," and so bees are associated with Zeus. The image on this slide depicts
  the story of four men who decided to put on armour and enter the sacred cave
  where Melissa cared for the infant Zeus. They were immediately attacked by
  the bees who lived in the cave. Zeus was so angry that he was going to killed
  the men until other gods intervened and reminded him that this was sacred
  place and so it was not right for him to kill people there. Zeus did was any
  cool-headed person would do, and he turned them into birds instead. - Cook
* Bees are also associated with Artemis, and the goddesses of her temples are
  called Melissai. It's believed that they served mead or wine sweetened with
  honey during religious ceremonies.
* In Norse mythology, mead played a central role in celebrations and was served
  to warriors in the afterlife. There's also a story of a godlike being
  (technically, it was a man made from god-spit, but ya know) who was killed by
  dwarves who then made mead from his blood. Because he was made from god-spit,
  his blood contained the wisdom of the gods. Odin was outraged when he learned
  of the murder and stole the mead from the dwarves. He then gave the mead to
  great poets, and so the mead became known as "mead of poetry."
* Mead also played a central role in epics like Beowulf. Heorot, the mead hall,
  was the center of the community and serves as both the beginning and ending
  point of each of Beowulf's trials.
</aside>

# ![White = Makes Mead](images/mead-norway.png)

<aside class="notes">
* Mythbusters!
* Norse mythology vs http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/387.html Lars Marius Garshol
* Questionnaire issued by Norwegian Ethnological Research in 1952 and 1957
</aside>

# Apocrypha
* Superstitions
* Honeymoon

<aside class="notes">
* Pliny on Plato: "Bees settled upon the lips of Plato when still an infant
  even, announcing thereby the sweetness of that persuasive eloquence for which
  he was so noted." - Pliny's Natural History
* While many people even today say that the honeymoon has its origin in a
  month-long marriage celebration (a.k.a., "bender") consisting largely of
  mead, there is no real evidence to confirm this. With that said, there are
  some interesting links between "honey" and "moon." Remember that Artemis was
  the goddess so associated with bees that her priestesses were called
  Melissai, or "bees." In addition to that, she was associated with the moon.
  Coincidence?
</aside>

# Honey
* Honey, bees, honey flavors and composition
    * meadowfoam
    * tupelo
    * orange blossom
    * wildflower

<aside class="notes">
* Bees are the only insect that produce food consumed by humans (https://www.bjcp.org/mead/storyofhoneyweb.pdf pg 4)
* Honey is mostly glucose (38%) and fructose (30%) other minor sugars vary by variatel (https://www.bjcp.org/mead/Mead_Study.pdf pg 13)
* Different honeys have different flavors
</aside>

# Recipe

# Ingredients
## From the grocery store
* 1.5 lbs orange blossom honey (plus 0.5 lb for back-sweetening)
* 1 gallon reverse osmosis water

# Ingredients
## From Boulder Fermentation Supply
* Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbonne White Wine yeast
* Wyeast Wine Nutrient
* Potassium Sorbate (to stop fermentation)

# Equipment
## Fermentation
* 1 Gallon Wide-Mouth clear jug ($9.99)
* Wide-mouth clear jug Grommeted lid ($2.50)
* 3-piece airlock ($1.25)

# Equipment
## Bottling
* 5 ft 5/16th" clear vinyl tubing
* 3/8th" bottle filler ($3.75)

# Equipment
## General
* Scale
* Measuring cup/spoons
* Mixing bowl
* Tea kettle (microwave/whatever -- some way to get water to 104°F)

# Process
## Demo!
<small>we have notes</small>

<aside class="notes">
1. Mix 1 gallon of tap water with 1 TBsp One Step in the fermenter
2. Place your spoon and airlock into the sanitizer
3. Let sit a few minutes and then dump into large mixing bowl, turn fermenter
   upside down in bowl so inside stays sanitary
4. Heat cold filtered tap water to 104°F, add 50ml to your sanitized measuring
   cup, sprinkle yeast on top to rehydrate, DO NOT STIR!!
3. Place your sanitized 1 gallon fermenter on the scale and tare it. Weigh out
   1.5 lbs of honey. You may need to heat the honey in a warm water bath so
   that it becomes less viscous so you're able to pour it.
4. Pour RO water on top of the honey to the 1 gallon mark you made in step 1.
5. Mix water and honey with your sanitized spoon. Whip in some oxygen as you do
   so. This mixture is now called "must".
6. Rehydrate yeast
7. Add 1/2 tsp Wyeast Wine Nutrient Blend to must.
8. Close lid and leave in a cool (60°F-75°F) dark area
9. After 24 hours, resanitize your clean spoon, stir until foam subsides.
10. After 48 hours, add in 1/8tsp nutrient and stir with sanitized spoon until
    foam subsides.
11. Alternate stirring and adding 1/8tsp nutrient w/stirring for the first week
12. Let sit an additional week until airlock activity slows/stops
13. rack to jug
14. let sit for a week
15. Add 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate, wait 24 hours
16. Boil 1/2 cup of RO water, remove from heat, stir in 1/2 lb of honey with
    sanitized spoon, add mixture to 1 gallon jug
17. bottling
</aside>
