Drink Your Mead (But In Moderation) @drinkyourmead-blog - Tumblr Blog

MEAD MASSACRE!

As evidenced by the brewboard, we’ve been pretty busy (and mature). On Sunday we transferred the ABBA and Yacketty Broad, then bottled the Pilgrim’s Progress ESB. The Maris Otter and Biscuit malt really shone through in our sample, and an appropriately low carbonation level should make for an authentic yet dangerously sessionable bitter. We also checked the gravity on the Brandon’s Beard Russian Imperial Stout, which was surprisingly at our predicted final gravity. That means we managed to push the ESB yeast past its theoretical 9%abv limit to a little over 10. Nevertheless, we pitched some rehydrated Nottingham now, rather than at bottling, just in case it eats through a few more gravity points. No point in risking some Tsar Bomba level bottle bombs.

Then we grabbed our drinking horns, battle axes, a few wenches, and got to the mead making. This batch of five includes a blueberry maple, vanilla java, superfruit (blueberry, pomegranate, and acai), banana-orange, and another one of our famous cysers. Theoretically, you could drink our mead all day— the blueberry maple and vanilla java for breakfast, superfruit and banana-orange for a nutritious lunch, and finish off the day with a relaxing cyser. Theoretically, you would be an alcoholic, but one of those alcoholics with discerning tastes and a refined palate. You know, the good kind.

Last batch of meads we thought we got champagne yeast, but it was the nefariously named Pasteur Champagne, which was a terrible floccuator but an excellent flatulence-ator. This time we correctly purchased the Lavlin EC-1118, which should lead to a more enjoyable drinking experience, though lacking the enjoyable laxative effects.

This was the last batch of mead supervised by Brandon before he leaves in July, and I think it might be our best yet. Unless he deliberately sabotaged the process in a final, expensive act of revenge for all the Taylor Swift and blink-182 we subjected him to. In which case, that makes him Moriarity, which in turn makes me Sherlock, and therefore Chad is Watson, and suddenly this manly blog post about Viking alcohol has become like one of my sister’s cheekbone fueled fanfics and I do not care for that, good sir!

drinkyourmead-blog

SO: this is what I secretly wish we could have done with ours. If you take a glance at the last picture, notice the lovely bits of fruit! The lovely bits of fruit, I believe, would have provided a natural source of yeast in the mead of the Early Middle Ages. Cool, neat, etc!

Some things about mead, yeast in nature, and mead:

[Pollington S. 2011. “The mead-hall community”. Journal of Medieval History 37:19-33.]

[**Rosch M. 2005. “Pollen analysis of the contents of excavated vessels – direct archaeobotanical evidence of beverages”. Veget Hist Archaeobot 14:179-188.]

[Sandhu DK, Waraich MK. 1985. “Yeasts associated with pollinating bees and flower nectar”. Microbial Ecology 11(1):51-58.]

[Vadkertiova R, Molnarova J, Vranova D, Slavikova E. 2012. “Yeasts and yeast-like organisms associated with fruits and blossoms of different fruit trees”. Canadian Journal of Microbiology 58:1344-1352.]

**Voted by me as #1 cool paper about mead/pollen leftovers

#Other people's mead #Mead #Archaeology #We're technically finished the project but this was cool

So far the least successful part of our project is making a drinking horn. The reason this has been so difficult is because there are very few local animals with horns and those that do have horns, such as cows, have their horns removed early on in there lives to make them easier to handle. This mean that all of the ideas that we came up with to find a fresh horn that had not been treated, such as checking local butcher shops and asking the ranchers themselves, at all were not successful.

I began the search in Quadra Village, stopping by Quadra Village Butcher Shop and asking if they had gotten any cows in that still had horns, and if so, if I could have them. The Man working behind the counter informed me that not only did they not have any at the time but he could not remember ever getting a cow with horns still attached in the whole time he had been working there.

Undettered I went to Island Meat and Seafood and asked the same question and again received the same answer.

Starting to lose hope I decided to stop by one more butcher shop. This time I went to The Village Butcher in Oak Bay. Once again I was turned away and told that they did not get any cows that still had horns. I began to realize that this was a pattern and chances are I wouldn`t be able to find a horn from a freshly killed cow in a butcher shop.

I still had some hope of finding a horn because I had planned to go home over the break for the congress held at UVIC. My family owns some land outside Regina SK that is unfarmable and used by the surrounding farmers as a dumping ground for sick cattle. I thought that this might come in handy and that maybe there would be the remains of a cow that still had horns.

Fortunately there were no freshly dead cattle because that would have been really gross but Unfortately the remains that I remembered being in those bushes were gone. I don`t know exactly what happened to them but there was a lot of flooding in the valley in the spring and they might have just been washed away.

I decided to go to the farms surrounding the ranch to ask the ranchers themselves if they had any horns.

Of the four surrounding farms only one had any cattle and the breed that they had were born without horns.

I decided to try one last butcher shop in the hopes that maybe cows with horns were more common in Saskatchewan. Once again I got the same answer however the butcher suggested calling the slaughterhouse where he got his meat from.

Once home I looked up the number in the phone book and called. The lady that answered the phone told me that she hadn`t seen any cattle come in with horns intact in the past twenty years as most of the ranchers in the area raised species of cattle that were born hornless.

Thinking that I still might have a chance finding a horn online I began to search but only came across horns that had already been treated and turned into drinking horns.

While looking at several different sources for making period drinking horns I stumbled across an article that not only described how to finish a horn in an authentic medieval way but listed some websites that sold treated but unfinished horns. The article made it clear that one was very unlikely to find a fresh untreated horn unless they themselves owned cattle that had horns or knew someone who did personally.

Both the modern and traditional methods of making drinking horns is relatively similar. The main differences being using modern cleaning solutions when hollowing out the horn, the use of power tools such as drills and belt sanders to shape and carve the horn, and modern apoxies that are sometimes used to coat the inside of the horn instead of the traditional beeswax coating.

I Forgot:

We tasted the "modern" and "authentic" mead batches today (and by "we" I mean Casey, as the rest of us are saving our bravery for tomorrow). Apparently they taste like mead (and smell like alcohol, I might add). I feel this is a success for our mead-making skills...however it was very much a foundationish experiment.

In the future, it might be interesting to invest in a mead that has to ferment for longer (and one that leans more toward that authentic side of events). However I think that the foundationish (I am embracing this as a word) aspect of the experiment was beneficial. It was simple, but through this we had a fairly controlled experiment. Due to the controlled nature of the experiment, we are free to research and form ideas around aspects such as resource availability (namely honey), and the question of "who brewed", etc. without factoring in problems with the experiment that we might have encountered had it been more complicated.

Now I'm actually going to bed.

Honey, Mead, and Many Peer-Reviewed Articles

I promised answers by last night but, alas, I was waylaid by life (in the form of my other summer course). Here I am though, and I have partial answers to some questions (and, yes, I of course have more questions). Yesterday I asked:

How was mold prevented in our focus time period? A) If overexposure to outside factors is an issue and B) If sanitation is an issue?

Did everyone make mead, or a select few?

PART I: MOLD AND MEAD

Sadly, I found no information on this part. However I flailed around the internet a little more (primarily Gotmead.com) and confirmed that mold in mead is verycommon (especially with those who have never made mead). Presumably, the mold doesn’t occur once most of the fermentation process is over…but how did early medieval brewers prevent mold growth in the time before that? In the various forums that send modern brewers in the right direction when their mead grows friends, there are two common replies:

Mild shame on you, you must sanitize your instruments better.

Throw a campden tablet (potassium metabisulphite) in.

This is fair enough, but clearly this level of sanitation would not be available to early medieval brewers. So the question remains: what did they do?

PART II: WHO MADE MEAD?

So far Pollington 2011 implies that we don’t know who was expected to serve mead, (although he recognizes that it was used in special ceremonies). With this in mind, I have little hope that we have much evidence as to who made mead. However, his interpretation of a set of Anglo-Saxon terms was interesting:

‘loaf-ward’: the head of the household conceived as the protector and maintainer of the food supply. The corresponding female term is hlafdige - ‘loaf-dough-maker’ - symbolizing the traditional female role as processor of raw materials into food (Pollington, 2011:21).

This is interesting because it defines the male role as one that watches overthe food, while the female role turns “raw materials into food”. Would “raw materials” extend to honey, and “food” extend to mead? Can this be applied to other cultures (as in, did women make mead in other cultures)? Dietler argues yes, that women were often brewers, especially in regards to alcohol consumed primarily by men (Dietler 2006:236).

What evidence of this do we have from the early medieval time period? I feel like not a ton, and most of it (judging from Pollinton’s writing) lies in written sources such as Beowulf. The problem with this, primarily, is the wall of interpretation that exists between the original state of such written sources, and what we see in the form of the modern Beowulf (which, I learned from my 100-level English class back in 2010, includes interpretation by Christian monks).

PART III: RESEARCH QUESTIONS (OR, I’M SORRY THIS POST IS SO LONG)

Also, since we’re nearing the end of our project (sadly), I’m going to take a late-night shot at some of the research questions we asked:

What can this project tell us about the making of mead in early medieval culture and its limitations (why might it have been so important, etc.).

What kind of archaeological evidence might we see preserved/not preserved (through a better understanding of the process of creating mead).

It is pretty late, and I’m kicking myself for including this part. However, I’m going to take a stab at where we could take our research from here (although our group will be parting ways to write our papers).

Mead and Its Limitations:

So far the main limitation I have seen, with the serendipity of finding mold in our “authentic” sample, is mead seems to grow mold (but so does ale). This means, I think, that a controlled environment would be necessary (as well as proper sanitation) to successfully produce a long-term batch of mead. This seems like a pretty significant problem, which was somehow avoided without Easy Clean or campden tablets.

The second limitation is in the base of mead itself: honey. We used roughly 1 litre (2.2 Ibs) of honey for each batch (which churned out about 6 litres of mead). So basically two peanut butter jars (of honey) + three 2 litre cartons of milk (of water) = a lot of honey if you’re making mead for an entire company of men (and maybe some women).

Where did all this honey come from? As I understand it, it is assumed that they farmed it (this is reasonable, considering just happening upon enough honey to make mead for more than twenty humans would be very fortunatebasically impossible).

I’ve done a bit of research, and (let’s be honest, as it’s 1:38 AM, and is there a better time to be honest?) I have read none of the publications about it so far. However I think it might be a good direction for future research, as the importance of mead may lie in its defining ingredient.

Archaeological Evidence: Preserving and Not Preserving

Whew. This is a research question I am both glad and not glad I asked.

From our experiment’s point of view: there is very little that would preserve in the brewing of mead (certainly not the mead itself). A question: could we possibly focus on the instruments there were used to brew the mead (i.e. stirring utensils, storage vessels, etc)? Do we know what these were? As far as I have read, the only evidence that remains in the archaeological record are drinking horns (and these are few).

Outside of our experiment: with many situations similar to finding mold in our mead, this experiment in general has created more indirect questions and ideas than direct ones. I think it is likely that evidence for mead in early medieval culture (and its importance) lies in surrounding factors such as honey production (and resource availability), drinking horns (and the effort put into them), and factors surrounding textual sources.

For now, I’m out (and it is 1:50 AM). Wish us luck in our presentation tomorrow!

- Sarah

#Anthropology #Mead #Group Project Time #Latestudy #GotMead.com #Pollington #Dietler

In a world which was generally non-inclusive to the point of hostility, public demonstrations of solidarity with kindred and political leadership were of immense importance.

Stephen Pollington on food and drink in Anglo-Saxon communities (2011, Journal of Medieval Archaeology 37: 21).

#S Pollington #Archaeology #Anglo-Saxon #Medieval Archaeology

A Bit of a Problem

We've run into a bit of a (pretty gross) problem. check it out.

There's some mold growing in the authentic mead. Not quite sure what to do about it.

MONDAY UPDATE: In Which Sarah Googles

So I shuffled around the internet a little bit, and it seems like mold in mead is pretty common. The best section of forum I found was this one, which is from Beesource.com. A few people connect mold growth with the use of unpasteurized ingredients (in our case, honey). This is moderately unfortunate, especially if the same thing happens in our other batch.

Interestingly, a few also connect mold growth with sanitation (some suggest products like Easy Clean). Also, it seems like mold happens more often when the mead is exposed to, well, the outside world.

How does this apply to our authentic vs. nonauthentic experiment (I have two questions)?

How was mold prevented in our focus time period? A) If overexposure to outside factors is an issue and B) If sanitation is an issue?

We are currently making the easiest mead one can, and still encountering problems. Apparently, the commenters on multiple forums are seeing similar problems (One, Two, Three). I've noticed that the only participants that don't have many problems are the ones that have been making mead for quite a long time. This makes me wonder whether everyone made mead, or a select few?

Since I have the day off work, I'm going barricade myself in the library/my apartment and learn some things! Hopefully I'll figure out the answers to my questions, and post them tonight (and most likely ask more questions)!

- Sarah

#Experimental archaeology #Mead #Brewing #Research questions #More research questions #Funfact

I Don't know if anyone said what we did yet but we made 2 batches of mead. the first batch an authentic mead with boiled water and just placed in an open vessel with cloth over top. The second batch was placed in a proper container and with a one way check valve and did not boil the mead with the water. We did not boil the water and mead to help keep the flavor.

We were expecting more foam so we are not sure if it is fermenting properly.

Week 1 Progress

I know this post is a bit late, but here is what the two batches of mead looked like on saturday night, one week after we started them going.

They look pretty much the same to me as they did in the beginning. I'm kinda worried. Maybe i'll try tasting one later.

Day 1 Progress

Here's some pictures of our mead after a day.

Modern Mead

Authentic Mead

They look pretty much the same as they did in the beginning.

Yesterday we spent a good portion of our Saturday night making mead. Now all we have to do is wait (and try to locate horns for the second part of our project).

What Are We Doing Here? Or: The First Real Post

So this is our first post, but what are we doing here?

We are looking to make mead, as them Anglo-Saxons (and Vikings) did, in a disturbingly short time period! Why, you ask? Mainly for our third year anthropology class (Medieval Archaeology).

Since this is the first post, it will be fairly short. So far, a bit of research has been done. It is interesting to note that it is very difficult to find a solid "recipe" for early medieval mead. As such, we will be relying on a very basic mead recipe (honey, water, yeast). It is still undecided how authentic the process will be, as it's difficult to choose between things like clean instruments (using a modern cleaning solution) or possibly poisoning our classmates.

With our proposal recently sent in (very recently), we have a day or so of down-time before a frenzy of mead making and hysterics. Until then: my work is done, and this is how I feel!

[whatshouldwecallgradschool]

- Sarah

#Archaeology #UVic #Anthropology #Medieval Archaeology #Anglo-Saxon #Mead #Drinking Horns

From the foaming mead-horns, with the choicest pure liquor, Which the bees collect, and do not enjoy.

XCIII. Song To Mead, Book of Talissin XIX

#Mead #Archaeology #Anthropology #Book of Taliessin #History

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