What about contamination?
If you just pour honey into warm tap water, I'd think you're just bound to grow lots of things that aren't yeast. Honey is made up of alot of yeast and yeast doesn't let very much grow becase of the alcohol Boil the h2o it will kill the contamination in the water before 1600's thay didn't kown about contamination Mead From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Mead (disambiguation). MeadMead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. It is generally pronounced "meed" (IPA: /miːd/). Meadhing (pronounced meth' ing, IPA: /ˈmɛ.ðɪŋ/) is the practice of brewing honey. Mead is also known as "honey wine," although this is inaccurate. Mead is a separate and distinct family of alcoholic beverages, completely apart from beer, wine, liqueur, and distilled beverages.
A mead that also contains spices (like cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg) or herbs (such as oregano or even lavender or chamomile) is called metheglin. The etymon of this word is derived from the Welsh word meddyglyn, meaning "medicinal liquor", as healing herbs were often stored as metheglin so they would be available over the winter (as well as making them much easier to swallow). Slavic miod/med, which means "honey", derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root.
A mead that contains fruit (such as strawberry, blackcurrant or even rose hips) is called melomel and was also used as a delicious way to "store" summer produce for the winter.
Mulled mead is a popular winter holiday drink, where mead is flavoured with spices and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it.
Contents [hide] 1 History of mead 2 Varieties of mead 3 Brands 4 References 5 External links
[edit] History of mead The history of mead goes back more than 8,000 years. The oldest known meads were created on the Island of Crete; fermented honey was seen as an entheogen and bees were sacred to Demeter. Wine had not yet been created. Mead was the drink of the Age of Gold, and the word for drunk in classical Greek remained "honey-intoxicated." (Kerenyi 1976 pp 35ff).
Mead was once very popular in Northern Europe, often produced by monks in monasteries in areas where grapes could not be grown. It faded in popularity, however, once wine imports became economical. Especially partial to it were the Slavs. In Polish it is called miód pitny (pronounced [mjut pi:tni]), meaning "drinkable honey". Mead was a favored drink among the Polish-Lithuanian szlachta (nobility). During the Crusades, Polish Prince Leszek I the White explained to the Pope that Polish knights could not participate in the Crusades because there was no mead in Palestine.
In Norse mythology, mead was the favorite drink of the Norse gods and heroes, e.g. in Valhalla, and the mead of the giant (Jotun) Suttung, made from the blood of Kvasir, was the source of wisdom and poetry. The nectar and ambrosia of the Greek gods are often thought of as draughts of fermented honey.
In Finland, a sweet mead called Sima (cognate with zymurgy), is still an essential seasonal brew connected with the Finnish Vappu festival. It is usually spiced by adding both the flesh and rind of a lemon. During secondary fermentation raisins are added to control the amount of sugars and to act as an indicator of readiness for consumption — they will rise to the top of the bottle when the drink is ready.
Ethiopian mead is called tej and is usually home-made. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and bark of gesho, a hops-like bittering agent which is a species of buckthorn. A sweeter, less-alcoholic version called berz, aged for a shorter time, is also made. The traditional vessel for drinking tej is a rounded vase-shaped container called a berele.
Evidence exists that mead was also made in India, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and Central Africa.
Mead is also mentioned in many old north Anglo-Saxon stories, including in the epic poem Beowulf.
The word "honeymoon" in English is supposedly traceable to the practice of a bride's father dowering her with enough mead for a month-long celebration in honor of the marriage.
[edit] Varieties of mead Different types of mead include, but are not limited to:
Braggot - Braggot (also called bracket or brackett) marks the invention of Ale. Originally brewed with honey and hops, later with honey and malt - with or without hops added.
Black mead - A name sometimes given to the blend of honey and black currants.
Cyser - Cyser is a blend of honey and apple juice fermented together. See also cider.
Hippocras - Hippocras (or Ypocras) is a combination of Pyment and spices.
Hydromel - Hydromel literally means water mead, and is the French name for mead. It is also used as a name for a light or low-alcohol mead.
Melomel - Melomel is made from honey and any fruit. Certain melomels may also be known by more specific names (see cyser, pyment, morat for examples)
Metheglin - Metheglin starts with traditional mead but has herbs and spices added. Some of the most common metheglins are ginger, tea, orange peel, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, or vanilla.
Morat - Morat blends honey and mulberries.
Pyment - Pyment blends honey and grapes. Pyment made with white grape juice is sometimes called "white mead"
Rhodomel - Rhodomel is made from honey, rose hips and water.
Tej - Tej is an Ethiopian mead, fermented with wild yeasts (and bacteria), and with the addition of gesho. Recipes vary from family to family, with some recipes leaning towards braggot with the inclusion of grains.
Mulsum - Mulsum is not a true mead, but is unfermented honey blended with a high-alcohol wine.
Medovukha - Eastern Slavic variant, very alcooholic. In principle, a vodka with distilled honey addition.
Mead can have a wide range of flavors, depending on the source of the honey, additives called "adjuncts" or "gruit" (including fruit and spices), yeast employed during fermentation, and aging procedure. Mead can be difficult to find commercially, though some producers have been successful marketing it. Blended varieties of mead can be known by either style represented. For instance, a mead made with cinnamon and apples can be referred to as a cinnamon cyser or as an apple metheglin.
Some meads retain some measure of the sweetness of the original honey, and some can even be considered as dessert wines. Drier meads are also available, and some producers offer sparkling meads, which (like champagne) can make for a delightful celebratory toast. There are a number of faux-meads, which are actually cheap wines with large amounts of honey added, to produce a cloyingly sweet liqueur. It has been said that "a mead that tastes of honey is as good as a wine that still tastes of grape".
Historically, meads would have been fermented by wild yeasts and bacteria residing on the skins of the fruit or within the honey itself. Wild yeasts generally result in a high alcohol content and some interesting by-flavors. As commercial brewing interests 'tamed' the yeasts into the strains we recognize now, certain strains became associated with certain styles of mead. Mostly, these are strains that are also used in beer or wine production. Several commercial labs, such as White Labs, WYeast, Vierka, and others have gone so far as to develop strains specifically for mead.
Mead can also be distilled to a brandy or liqueur strength. Krupnik is a sweet Polish liqueur made through just such a process.
[edit] Brands Havill's Mazer Mead, Rangiora, South Island, New Zealand Empire T&W American Royal Mead Rabbit's Foot Meadery, Sunnyvale, California, USA Red Branch Cider Company, Sunnyvale, California, USA Honeymoon Meadery Bellingham, Washington, USA Redstone Meadery , Boulder, Colorado, USA "Camelot Mead" made by Oliver Winery, Bloomington, Indiana, USA White Winter Winery , Iron River, Wisconsin, USA "Bunratty Mead" made by Bunratty Mead & Liquer Co Bunratty, Co. Clare, Ireland Bartholomews Meadery, Denmark, Western Australia Stonewall Vineyards Pyment, Concord, Virginia, USA. "Moniack Mead" made by Highland Wineries Inverness Scotland Lurgahsall Winery, Petworth, West Sussex, UK. [1], Lindisfarne, North East England, UK. [2], Huddersfield,England, UK. [3], Norfolk,England, UK. [4], Cornwall,England, UK. [edit] References Schramm, Ken; The Compleat Meadmaker; Brewers Publications; ISBN 0-937381-82-9; paperback, 2003 Kerenyi, Karl; Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life; Princeton University Press; ISBN 0-691098-63-8; unknown binding, 1976 Digby, Kenelm; The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt Opened 1669; Prospect Books; eds. Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson; ISBN 0-907325-76-9; paperback, 1997 Gayre, Robert and Papazian, Charlie; Brewing Mead: Wassail! In Mazers of Mead; Brewers Publications; ISBN 0-937381-00-4; paperback, 1986. [edit] External links Wikibooks Cookbook has more about this subject: Mead
MeadWorks.ca , A Canadian-based mead brewing club, resource, and Ezine. Gotmead.com , A huge site with over 1200 pages of mead-related info, along with a lively, but friendly Forum. A Friend In Mead General Interest East Cowdry Bootleggers A short history & homebrewing recipes. [5] Web site location for the venerable Mead Lovers Digest. Archives, FAQ, and information for subscribing to the digest are here. [6] Good site covering areas of general interest, also tasting notes and a searchable archive of the Mead Lovers Digest. [7] Apiary Honighäuschen at the Drachenfels with mead recipes RealBeer.com's Mead pages Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead"
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