MEAD!!!1 ZOMG

A Blazey and Tyler Joint

Overview

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

We're a big deal.

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

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 pinapple
Steve Fletty's sour barrel aged mesquite honey mead with agave

So that's mead.

History

Mead's got lots of that

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 doulbes 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.

The Magic Bag Conjecture

Paliolithic hunters
Swelling
???
Profit

Historical Evidence

Native Americans
Africa
Egypt

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.

Greek and Norse Mythology

As an infant, Zues 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 Zues. 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 Zues. They were immediately attacked by the bees who lived in the cave. Zues 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. Zues 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 leared 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.

Apocrypha

Superstitions
Honeymoon

Honey

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

Recipe

Ingredients

From the grocery store

1.5 lbs orange blossom honey (plus 0.5 lb for back-sweetening)
1 gallon reverse osmossis 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!

we have notes

Mix 1 gallon of tap water with 1 TBsp One Step in the fermentor
Place your spoon and airlock into the sanitizer
Let sit a few minutes and then dump into large mixing bowl, turn fermentor upside down in bowl so inside stays sanitary
Heat cold filtered tap water to 104*F, add 50ml to your sanitized measuring cup, sprinkle yeast on top to rehydrate, DO NOT STIR!!
Place your sanitized 1 gallon fermentor 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.
Pour RO water on top of the honey to the 1 gallon mark you made in step 1.
Mix water and honey with your sanitized spoon. Whip in some oxygen as you do so. This mixture is now called "must".
TODO: rehydrate yeast---however that's done
Add 1/2 tsp Wyeast Wine Nutrient Blend to must.
Close lid and leave in a cool (60F-75F) dark area
After 24 hours, resanitize your clean spoon, stir until foam subsides.
After 48 hours, add in 1/8tsp nutrient and stir with sanitized spoon until foam subsides.
Alternate stiring and adding 1/8tsp nutrient w/stirring for the first week
Let sit an additional week until airlock activity slows/stops
rack to jug
let sit for a week
Add 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate, wait 24 hours
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
bottling