PW XX to PW XXI

THE POST WAR BLITZ

Space saving notes - from this point on a 1 campden tablet per gallon addition can be assumed.  I will simply leave it out of the recipes.  In addition all post PW XX racking were done with the intent of mixing oxygen into the mead, thus a long drop and splashing in the new container were the method.

Honey - at this point I began looking around at various honeys.  I kept no record of which were used for some time.  When the records started they appear below.


Mead 2, 2W & 2B - 7/9/91                             1 US gallon per honey type
1kg honey (clover, wildflower, buckwheat)
5 tsp acid blend (1/3 malic. tartaric, citric)
 
Yeast: 1116  (a single starter was used for all of these batches)
Racked: 9/10/91 - acid balancing was done at this point (2 was fine, 2W was reduced from 7 ppt to 3 ppt, 2B was reduced from 14 ppt to 3 ppt)
Racked: 15/7/92

NOTES
16/8/92             Wonderful.  All were very palatable and had MUCH cleaner bouquets.  A very perceptible difference in flavour.  My only complaint was they were not clear enough.  More racking is a must.


Apple-Cinnamon 2 - 14/9/91                              5 US gallons
5 Kg honey
2.5 gallons Wellsley apple cider (no preservatives)
10 T ground cinnamon

Yeast: Wine art 1116
Racked: 4/10/91  - Split at this point.  1/2 racked with the addition of 150 ml honey per litre, 1/2 racked as is.
Racked: 10/6/92  - Tasted.  Sweet was a little too sweet for me, dry had very sharp taste.
Racked: 12/7/92  - Sweet and Dry blended.  Result is fantastic.  Not quite the same as apple cinnamon 1 but the difference may well be the cider.
NOTES
16/8/92             After almost a year of trying to re-create a product it was nice to succeed.  The differences that mattered were the sorbate in the cider which must have fought the fermentation in #1 leaving a sweet product and the type of cider (both the production method and the types of apples as well as the growth cycle of the apples would have mattered). I am fairly certain the stick/ground cinnamon was of no consequence.


Apple-Cinnamon 2B - 14/9/91                           1 US gallon
0.6 kg buckwheat honey
2L Wellsley apple cider (no sorbate)
6 tsp cinnamon

Yeast: Wine art 1116
Racked: 2/10/91 - Acid test showed 14 ppt, balanced to 3ppt - 2L pulled off and 1 bottle of hazel nut liquor extract was added. - Fermentation continued
Racked: 10/1/91

NOTES
16/8/92             The hazel batch was WAY too strong.  The extracts appear to need to be 1 bottle of extract per gallon or more of mead.  The straight was almost overpowered by the buckwheat taste of the honey.  A wildflower honey might work but mild (clover) will probably give the best results.


Ale Mead - 14/9/91                   1 US gallon
Hallertau Aroma hops pellets (1 pkg)
1.2 kg buckwheat honey
2 tsp citric acid

Yeast:  Wine art 1116
Method:
1/2 gal water boiled with hops for 15 min.  Honey, rest of water, and acid mixed.  As hopped water cooled it and yeast added.
Racked: 25/9/91 with 1/4 tsp honey as primer. 

NOTES
27/9/91 -> 10/10/91 - This needed to be cleared and would probably be a LOT better flat.


Kiwi 2 - 14/9/91                    2 US gallons
1 kg kiwi
2.4 kg honey (wildflower)

Yeast: Wine art 1116
Pulp Strained: 28/9/91 - 150mL white grape concentrate added
Racked: 1/3/92
Racked: 20/7/92

NOTES
16/8/92             Exactly what it was the first time out (some minor changes in taste from my memory but they were almost certainly the result of a different grape concentrate being used).


Mead 3 - 9/10/91                   5 US gallon
1 kg wildflower honey
1 tsp tannin
10 tsp malic acid
15 tsp tartaric acid
5 tsp citric acid

Yeast: Wine art 1116
Racked: 10/11/91  This batch was then split to 1 US gallon containers and liquor extracts added to produce a variety of flavours. 1.5 L also pulled off and spearmint sprigs added to each bottle.  The extra was bottled as a basic mead.
Racked: 20/7/92

NOTES
16/8/92              Apricot Brandy - Far too strong.  Almost undrinkable.  Next time use one extract bottle for two gallons.
16/8/92             Scotch Heather - A good strong taste although it overwhelms the honey flavours.  I would cut this back to one bottle per six litres.
16/8/92             Peach Schnapps - A little sweet but good.
16/8/92              Spearmint - Magic-time.  Microbubbles are back in a sweet liquor second to nothing else available.  my next repeat project.
16/8/92             Basic - Just that ... basic.  Standard honey wine


Mead 4 - 9/10/91                   5 US gallon
1 kg clover honey
1 tsp tannin
10 tsp malic acid
15 tsp tartaric acid
5 tsp citric acid

Yeast: Wine art 1116
Racked: 15/11/91
Racked: 15/6/92

NOTES
16/8/92             A much nicer bouquet this time.  Avoiding the nutrients also seemed to help.  Basic mead seems to be turning out to be a good standby.


The acid group - 5/10/91                   3 US gallons
3 Kg clover honey
5 tsp acid (see note below)
 
Yeast: wine art 1116
Racked: 15/6/92
Racked: 15/7/92

NOTES
5/10/91             Each gallon was made with a different acid.  One each of Citric, Malic, and Tartaric.  The intent here was education not drinkability.
16/8/92             Citric wasn't bad but a little acidic.  Tartaric was overpowering.  Malic was acidic but passable.  For future use I will probably use a Citric/Malic blend and simply ignore the tartaric.


NOTES on PW XXI tasting.

                Types available: Mead 2, 2B, 2W, 4, Kiwi 2, Apple-Cinnamon 2, Apple-cinnamon 2B, Mango, Strawberry-Pineapple, Banana, Rhubarb, Cherry, Apricot brandy, Scotch Heather, Peach Schnapps, Spearmint,

Lessons:
                - normal yeasts require nutrients which grapes contain but honey does not.  This accounts for the general sweetness of the meads.  Further research confirmed that the more required nutrient is Ammonium Phosphate while the taste I do not like in the commercial nutrient comes from one of the other additives.  The may very well be the cause of "microbubbles" as the additives cause fermentation to restart a tiny bit in a very hostile environment.
                - culturing yeast was also brought up as a topic which I like.  On returning from war I started a champagne yeast (wine art 1118) in a straight honey (clover) must at no more then 5% probable alcohol.  All post PW XXI meads use this yeast unless otherwise noted.

Notes:
                - having balanced all the meads to a 3ppt acid level made for a MUCH
                  improved taste.
                - the use of potassium sorbate instead of campden at first racking and
                  not using campden after the start up removed the sulphur aftertaste
                  and led to a clearer product.
                - addition of pectaze also provided a MUCH clearer end product although
                  it has become very clear that 4 or 5 rackings will be needed to
                  properly clear the mead.
                - being the "old man" was amusing as several other vintners showed up at
                  the mead tasting with various products.  One especially caught me with
                  a product that reminded me of my very first batch, hopefully he
                  remembered the run down of lessons I gave him (see these notes and the
                  PW XX notes to guess what they were) it will be fun to see what he
                  comes back with next year.
                - Mountain dew mead is an abomination.
                - The sweeter meads were far and away the most popular.  Since
                  sweetening mead is trivial make sure for next year that all meads are
                  available as both "sweet" and "dry".


General Notes on Mead making and SCA re-creation:
                - All references found to date have been post period  (with a few exceptions all of which are merely to a drink called mead or "honey mead" from the sagas none of which describe its creation)
                - I feel that a medieval vintner would have had a firm grip on what the public wanted in terms of their drinks as well as what he liked.  Further any such vintner should be able to re-create on demand any of his previous products (even if they were flukes).
                - Since Digby mentions using "ale yeast" or "mead yeast" as separate concept it is clear that by his time yeast was being cultured.  It is therefore not a long step to assume that a master vintner would have also been able to culture yeast and would have done so.  A mark of difference therefore between different vintners would have been the various yeasts used.  To this end I began catching wild yeasts in a weak honey-water mix with an eye to having my own private yeast collection. (as of 2/11/92 six containers are currently developing life of their own)
                - On enquiring after laurel vintners I hear of only two.  One being Master Soloman of Maiden Mongolia (Trimaris).  I am frankly astonished that the SCA has any laurels in these arts as they cannot be doing period re-creation in a fully documented style.  Which brings up the question of what should be required in a vintner to become a laurel.  Locally our heavy weight vintners are Enid, Ricard and Mordreth.  Discussion with them on this topic is now a priority.  (4/11/92) A further Question: should the sca recognize in any way those persons working in an area that cannot be done outside of the society?  As an example this metheglin project.  Herbed meads and remedies are mentioned in Digby and can therefore be assumed to be period (70 years isn't all that long) but it is impossible to document any period recipes.  Further the contents of our recipes are NOT what they would have been in period but what we now know to be true.  Thus in a cold cordial no poisons are used and the mead they are used in is more to the liking of the modern palette.
                - I have been very open about my meads and melomels, which is probably in contravention of standard medieval practice but probably a very good idea for the SCA.  With the introduction of the cordial and metheglin projects with Elina and Thaninieyeres this must not be allowed to extend into these recipes.  For this reason I will not be recording in the open version of this notebook the actual herbs used in these special projects.  The other recipes will, however, remain available.  In this notebook I will be keeping only date and mead content notes for these projects.
Yeast notes - if no Yeast line appears the cultured champagne yeast was used, if a commercial yeast was used it will be noted.  My own cultured yeasts will only be noted by letter designations


Additional Notes: 16/11/92
                - It has now become apparent that my mead workings are starting to become non-linear with several projects on the go at any one time.  For this reason the log will now split to work by sections with each section beginning on its own page and forward until the END OF PROJECT marker appears.  An index of these projects appears below.

Index:
                1. Other meads
                2. Metheglins
                             Cordials
                             True Metheglins
                3. Yeasts
                4. Strengths
                5. Documentation
                6. A & S rambles 9/93
                7. Bibliography 7/10/93
                8. Materials 7/10/93
                9. Period 7/10/93


Yet More Notes (20/9/93)

                - On a generic level things have been very hectic since the end of November which has led to a pile of adjustments/problems in each section of my projects.  (see each project for specifics)
                - the concepts driving my internal debates with regards to the SCA and the A&S are now complex enough to warrant a section of their own.  For readability I have copied all A&S rambles into this new section and further I will be including non-private chunks of various correspondences in this section.
                - As of this time I have stopped using chemicals entirely in my production.  (Unless you count the chalk which I will still use a bit of.)