mead-session

MEAD!!!1 ZOMG

A Blazey and Tyler Joint

Overview

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

* This is an overview of what we intend to cover (at least partially) in this talk

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* 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

We're a big deal.

* No really

* 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)

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* 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

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

* 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

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

* 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/)

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 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.

The Magic Bag Conjecture

• Paleolithic hunters
• Swelling
• ???
• Profit

* 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

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Historical Evidence

• Native Americans
• Africa
• Egypt

* "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

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.

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Greek and Norse Mythology

* 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.

* 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

Apocrypha

• Superstitions
• Honeymoon

* 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?

Honey

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

* 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

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!

we have 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