Talk:Mead/Archive01

Page Cleanup

We need to clean up this page. There are some minor formatting errors and I think it would be great if a more experienced Wikipedian could clean this up. Also, a citation has been incorrectly cited. Hop to it! :-)

Old Discussion

Since finnish is a finno-ugric language, and greek an indo-european, it seems unlikely "Sima" and "Zymurgy" are true cognates, maybe the finnish have borrowed their word from a russian source or something...

Also, to a layman, it seems as likely the polish word was borrowed from a germanic source, as a native polish word, but I am not an expert of polish etymology...

Uhm? Miod in Polish means honey. It's a word common in all Slavic languages. It is either very early borrowing (but what is Germanic word for honey? And it's unlikely that Slavs would call honey mead because of Germanic alcoholic beverage, isn;t it? Szopen 15:36, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, it seems that it is a cognate, (that is a word that originally stems from the same source) rather than a direct translation. Maybe this should be changed. The original germanic word for honey would be something like hunaga or honig... Proto-Indo-European has two roots related to honey, one *melith, meaning honey, one *medhu, meaning a fermented alcoholic drink made with honey. It seems that the *medhu evolved into honey in slavic, either from an early germanic borrowing or from a native word. I am no expert on slavic etymology.

The polish page is called "Miód pitny". My polish is hardly rudimentary, but I believe it would be translated to something like "drinking miod"(Miod for drinking). I wonder if that is a native word or a borrowed word... ...Hmmm, using "drinking" as an adjective like that seems wrong, maybe it should be "Drinkable miod" or something...

Tej

I've seen it commonly said by mead drinkers and brewers that Tej is a form of mead. Most of us have never had Tej so we've just been repeating what other people tell us. I think that this might be incorrect. An Israeli woman who brews mead and has made Tej (under instructions from Ethiopian friends) recently posted this recipe for it. http://www.gotmead.com/mead-research/tej-ancient-honey-beer.shtml According to her and the recipe Tej is at best a braggot, but since the honey is added after fermentation it shouldn't be considered a mead at all. Also, the cut off for a honey lager and braggot is generally 50% fermentable sugar from honey. If less than 50% of the fermentable sugars in it come from honey it is a honey flavored beer and if more than 50% of the sugar in it is from honey it is considered a braggot. I will let you decide how to edit the article though, as I didn't want to directly edit it first without some input and will forget to come back. -FW

I am not sure this recipe is correct. According to my wife (who is Ethiopian), honey is used from the very start. The use of semolina did not make any sense to her at all. Perhaps there are regional variations? I'll have to get more details from her regarding her own recipe, but it sounds more like mead with the addition of gesho. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 05:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

ETYMOLOGY

Hm.. IF medhu is from IE root, then it should be noted in article, and both "miod/med" given by me and Welsh words should be given only as example. I really do not believe that Slavs in IX century were calling their favourite drink by Welsh words... Szopen 18:05, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Whose recipe?

Whose @#!%@ recipe is this, anyway? What is the world is "three pounds per gallon"? is that—

• 3 lb per imperial gallon = 2 lb 8 oz per U.S. liquid gallon

or is it

• 3 lb per U.S. gallon = 3 lb 10 oz per imperial gallon

Back in college, a friend and I got tripped up by a recipe like that when we tried to make some wine. It doesn't work very well to use the wrong gallons. Gene Nygaard 05:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

--> You're way off base. 3 lb per gallon is a general term, especially in mead making. Less is dry, more is sweet. No big deal.

An imperial gallon is roughly 1.2 U.S. Gallons. So yes, it can make a small difference if you're somewhere in the universe using imperial numbers. If for some haphazard reason you're using imperial, then the mead will be "dry" and not as sweet. It will not be ruined.... It will not taste bad.... You'll be fine. This is a rough recipie.

A more exact would be:

18 lbs Tupelo honey

21 Pints water <--US or imperial?

5 tsp yeast nutrient

1 pkg Red Star Champagne Yeast.

Total volume is ~ 5 gallons.

Enjoy, and please... have a mead... you seem to need one.

Just cleaning up....

Just a note here... I often see the 3#/USG rule and a similar but better one - 1 part honey to 3 parts water. (I've also seen 1 part honey to 4 parts water). If you use 1:3 and a strong yeast the mead will finish dry at 14.3% ABV. 1:4 will result in 11.5% ABV. Both are good amounts to aim for. Some other yeasts considered good for mead making are Red Star Cotes des Blancs, Lalvin EC-1118 (equivalent to RS Champagne), Lalvin ICV D-47, and Lalvin K1V-1116. -FW

Personally, I only use Cotes de Blanc if I am making a Melomel or Cyser. For straight Wassail I use Red Star Pasteur Champaigne. The Pasteur Champaigne produces a decidedly nutty after-taste which I and my friends have become quite fond of. :) --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 18:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The section "How to make mead #2"

I really don't think that this section belongs under this article. The process that is described is not really for making mead at all. All mead must contain at least a substantial base of the fermentables to be honey. The process of using "Citrons" may be for making a fermented alcoholic beverage, but it is not mead. I'm going to watch this article for a while and look for other articles in which to put the "citron" beverage, but if I hear no objections I would like to move or delete that portion of the article. The method that is descibed in the first section does give a general overview of making the beverage at home and does give a mead that is not too dry or sweet. I am going to edit the gallons designation to read "Gallons (U.S.) to avoid any confusion with the Imperial gallon.

--Matthew Hill 00:09, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the identification. I agree, the "citrons" (likely lemons rather than the English-language citron?) one should go, whether or not you find another home for it. Gene Nygaard 00:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. It's nothing like beverages referred to as mead in English. It appears to have been added 04:26, 31 Aug 2004 by anonymous user 193.167.144.30, whose only other contribution was to the article on Glögg. -Ben 23:04, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As there were no arguments in favor of keeping the strange lemon/sugar brew recipie, I moved it below. -Ben 06:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How to make mead #2

This method of making mead is commonly used in Finland. It is not based on honey, but citrons instead.

Gather your equipment. You will need a closeable container (a big plastic bucket for example) and empty bottles, size depending on how much you are going to produce.

You may want to sterilize all of your equipment like described in the previous recipe.

Starter recipe:

5 liters of water. 0.5kg of brown sugar. 0.5kg of white sugar. 2 citrons. A small piece of yeast. Raisins.

Boil 2 liters of water. Meanwhile, wash the citrons well and peel them into the container you will making your mead in. Add the sugars into the container with the peels. Pour the boiling water on top. Mix.

Add 3 liters of cold water so that the mixture will be lukewarm. Add a very small piece of yeast and slice the citrons into the mix, carefully removing the white part. Let it stand overnight. When you are ready to bottle it, add one spoonful of sugar and a few raisins to the bottle before you pour the mead in.

After bottling, let the bottles stand on a desk (room temperature) for a few more hours. Move the bottles to your refrigerator. The mead is ready, and should be served cold.

Mead recipe on the WikiCookbook

I have added the recipe of mead to a WikiCookbook article. I think that a perhaps this article should add a link to that page, rather than to contain a "how to make mead" itself. I feel that recipes are quite unencyclopedic. Salleman 19:21, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Popes

To which pope is the article referring? The following popes were around during Leszek the White's lifetime, beginning in 1186, the earliest estimated date of his birth: Pope Urban III, Pope Gregory VIII, Pope Clement III, Pope Celestine III, Pope Innocent III, Pope Honorius III, Pope Gregory IX

Appleseed 21:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Very probably Innocent III, as he was the only one preaching crusades (the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Albigensian—though why a Polish prince would be involved in the last, I don't know) during Leszek's time as ruler. A source for this legend would be nice, though. —Charles P. (Mirv) 21:50, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Home Mead Making

It seems to me that this should be discussed at least to some extent (though I agree recipes don't belong here). Perhaps home mead making should be discussed alongside homebrewing? In my experience the homebrewing and mead making cultures are one in the same so it makes sense to do so but I think it could potentially be confusing. I brought this up for discussion on the Homebrewing Talk Page. Frank 19:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Mead in Norse Mythology

I moved this paragraph to be in the History section. It really didn't fit w/ the first section which was all just a description of what mead is. It fits better in history but still not perfectly. Hopefully, someone can come along and add enough info to make a whole section on mead in mythology--if only because I'd be intersted in learning more. Frank 00:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Morat

I'm changing the definition of Morat to blend of honey and mulberries. I've never seen it as a blend of honey and currents; see this Google for an example of how prevalent the honey and mulberries definition is. Webaware 22:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Perry

Perry is not a mead, it is a fermentation of pear juice. I don't believe there is an English name for the fermentation of honey and pear juice, so perhaps it is just a pear melomel (I call mine perrymel, but this is just a handy contraction of the two words and certainly not generally used in the language). There may be a standard name for this drink in other languages (as there is for the blend of apple and pear juices fermented together in German), but I've never come across it. Webaware 22:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

HOMELAND OF MEAD IS POLAND.

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Homeland of mead is Poland and there are produce the best meads.

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If you will delete one more time my essential post in discussion it will be sounded this event. Case will be loud. It remember that It making You break law.

. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.120.48 (talk • contribs)

Look, you put this in about 5 times, and when you finally made it a section and not just randomly on the top of the page, I left it there. All I've done is add a tag saying who wrote it, which is the proper procedure. Now you have erased that tag. Please, either (a) erase the whole thing or (b) leave the tag on there saying that you wrote it. The article clearly states that Mead has been around at least 8000 years, and Poland about 1000. Lastly, please consult WP:LEGAL for your other statements. -- RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib Reverts} 15:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

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History of Poland my dear it 2000 years almost. But besides undeniable fact is that polish Mead is the best.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.120.48 (talk • contribs)

• Please see WP:NPOV and WP:V for notes on Neutral Point of View and Verifiability, two of the non-negotiable cornerstones of this encyclopedia. Please also read WP:NOT for a list of what is not appropriate here - this includes "Wikipedia is not a soapbox" and "Wikipedia is not a battleground". Wikipedia is not the place for unverifiable, point-of-view laden statements such as "Polish Mead is the best". Or, for that matter, that Hussars were invincible. Please read the pages I have linked to and bring your editing style into line with the policies of this encyclopedia. If you have any questions, you can leave them on my talk page or the help desk and I'll try to help. Thanks. — Estarriol ^talk 16:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

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There is not my personal point of view opinion of but expert of Mead and history of Mead I am which.

.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.120.48 (talk • contribs)

OK, well, even if you are an expert, then review WP:NOR. -- RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib Reverts} 17:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes, please publish your opinion somewhere relevant first, then we can reference it. Although, of course that will just be something along the lines of "some polish mead historians think polish mead is the best", which is pretty obvious. Strangely, many English mead historians think English mead is the best too. WP:NPOV is the key here. — Estarriol ^talk 17:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

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There is not only my opinia as expert but essential information for discussion on Wikipedia. I salute.

.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.120.48 (talk • contribs) Again.

• Scoffs* Polish mead the best . . . yeah right. Of what i've tasted it's quite bland. Grecian mead is probably the best followed by English or Danish mead. (And i'm an Irishman so i'm totally neutral to these countries)

84.68.57.146 01:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Who's this POV swine that does not even have the basic courtesy of signing his own pseudonym, and what are his credentials? Anyway, mead used to be the Polish national drink... I don't know whether that's still the case. As for who makes the best... I've seen quite satisfying stuff from plain old France that makes no assertions as to that product, though I would gladly check international products. To boot, I'm leery abouyt any country claiming to be the homeland of something they did not actually invent. --Svartalf 13:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Fermentation

A while back, I added a note asking for a citation for the reference to high alcohol production by wild yeast. No one provided any reference for this, and everything I've ever read on the subject says exactly the opposite. That is, wild or native yeast are rarely capable of producing high (12 to 13%) alcohol levels that we expect in wine and mead. It may take generations of wine or mead production in a region for alcohol tolerant strains to come to dominate the environment. I removed this reference and reworded the section. I also removed the reference to bacterial fermentation; I can only assume this was a reference to malo-lactic fermentation, and to the best of my knowledge and research, malo-lactic fermentation has never played a large role in mead production. Gregmg 14:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your bacterial fermentation point, I can't see why a wild fermentation of honey-based must would not have bacteria active in it. If you ferment pretty much anything without first boiling (or otherwise sanitising) it and pitching a pure yeast culture, you will get (at least) various lactic acid bacteria, in addition to wild yeasts, acetobacter, and others. The use of unpasteurised honey, together with the addition of fruit, practically guarantees bacteria. Keeping it under airlock will limit the quantity of acetic acid produced, but will not prevent some lactic acid production. Webaware 08:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there's almost certainly some bacteria in it, but bacteria cannot produce alcohol nor does bacteria play a significant role in the production of mead. Further, specific strains of wine or ale yeasts are used to produce most meads today, and these yeasts will quickly overwhelm anything else in the must, including wild yeasts and bacteria. Anywhere mead has been produced for any length of time, native yeasts become particularly well suited for the task, and like their modern, isolated counterparts, will quickly overwhelm anything else in the must. So, I concede that raw, unprocessed honey likely has some bacteria in it, and any must that hasn't been boiled is likely contaminated with some bacteria, but there's no evidence that bacteria plays a signicant role in the producton of mead. One of the primary English language references for mead is The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm. He doesn't even mention bacteria anywhere in the book. As currently written, this article implies that bacteria is important for fermentation. That simply isn't true. Unless you can find a reference to support this, I'm going to delete the bacteria reference. Gregmg 13:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it is important to have bacteria in a mead fermentation, nor necessarily desirable, and neither is the article as it stands. I'm merely saying that it happens - if you are fermenting without a pure culture, then ipso facto the fermentation has bacterial action, and this will provide some flavour contribution - whether positive or negative is both a matter of chance and a matter of taste. If you are adding fruit, and this is the source of the wild yeast (as the article states), then you are most certainly adding whatever bacteria are co-resident on the fruit.

I don't have time to hunt down a cite for bacteria in mead at present, if such even exists. However, I can certainly point you to a cite for bacteria in cider fermentations[1], where the apples are milled and pressed, and the unheated juice is allowed to ferment. Note, also, that T'ej, the wild-fermented Ethopian mead / braggot, has a distinctive sour flavour due to the action of lactic acid bacteria. Other wild-fermented beverages, such as Lambic ale and African sorghum beers, also exhibit this sourness due to bacterial fermentation. Webaware 15:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I think a bit of clarification is in order. I suggest dropping the bacterial reference from the first sentence, and adding a reference later in the same paragraph to the role bacteria plays in specific traditional meads. This might also be a good fit further up in the article.

My concern is this; fermentation is most commonly defined as the process of converting sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol. I realize that there are alternate definitions that cover bacterial fermentation, but most people reading this article are going to be left with the wrong impression. Gregmg 16:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's stretching it a bit far - alcoholic fermentations are usually dominated by yeast, although not always. It's just that sweet liquids give yeast a chance to really get out there and do their stuff, as compared to, say, unsweetened milk (e.g. kefir) or bread dough/batter (e.g. sourdough, idli, dosa). East Asian rice wines (e.g. sake, jiu) go nowhere without a mould fermentation first, with yeast and bacteria tagging along behind. The classic ginger beer fermentation is both yeast and bacterial, thus alcohol and lactic acid ferment. Traditional fermentations of anything naturally had bacteria working away in them, contributing to their traditional flavours.

Nonetheless, I take your point. Shift the word bacteria to where it would make you feel more comfortable. However, please don't simply delete it as you previously did. There's more to mead than dump and stir, and we've only had those handy hermetically sealed sachets or vials for a relatively short time in the history of mead making. Webaware 00:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Allergies

If brewed with local honey (local to the area you are/will be in,) I've always found mead to be very good for keeping hay fever down. Anyone else found any citeable sources/confirmation of this, or is it just me being weird? GideonStargrave 01:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not just you being weird. I've known several people who have sworn by honey as a Prophylactic for hay fever. The honey article makes a reference to this, but is lacking a proper reference. Perhaps you could find one and update both articles. Gregmg 02:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

category discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_23#Category:Honey_liqueurs_and_spirits to voice your opinions. -- nae'blis 16:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Since Mead is pronounced two different ways in the English speaking world, I believe the pronunciation comments are relevant. They were just removed by another user. Unless anyone has any objections, I'll reinstate them shortly. Gregmg 03:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

general mead information moved from Lindisfarne Mead

Hi Mead editors:

I moved the following from Lindisfarne Mead as it wasnt about Lindisfarne mead specifically, but was about Mead generally. Not sure whether it can be incorporated in the general mead document.

Text moved from Lindisfarne Mead

A tribe in Kenya; the Kikuyu, still ferment mead today from the honey produced by wild bees. The Hindu scriptures mention both honey and mead, and it was drunk by the ancient Greeks. Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, is said to have taught bee-keeping as a sideline.

Mead has been drunk in Britain since Celtic times. The writer Gildas tells us that the legendary King Arthur drank it, no doubt because Gildas thought it was a kingly thing to drink. The great Anglo-Saxon classic Beowulf talks of both mead and ale. Mead was drunk by kings in banqueting or mead halls and was imbibed from decorated horns. Chaucer praised mead in the Canterbury Tales. In the Miller's Tale, the merry priest woos his lady love with the best mead he can buy. What is Mead?

In its simplest form, mead is just honey and water, fermented with yeast so that the sugars in the honey turn to alcohol. Originally, fermentation was left to wild yeasts from the air, or from the dregs of old stock.

There are several variants of mead:

• metheglin is a spiced variety which was supposed to have medicinal powers;
• pyment is a grape wine, sweetened with honey (the Romans called it mulsum)
• cyser is fermented apple juice and honey, perhaps a forerunner of cider;
• melomel is a fruit mead - made for example, with raspberries,
• sack mead is sweeter than mead; honey and malt fermented together make an ale called bracket.

Meadhorns and Mazers

Of course mead attracted its fair share of legends. It was said that mead should be drunk during the first month of marriage. Hence the word “honeymoon”.

The ancients drank from mead-horns, but the traditional mead vessel was called a Mazer. Originally the name referred to a cup made of maple wood. Chaucer mentions mazers, and of course the rich ensured their bowls were ornamented with gold and silver. But by the 14th century, a gallon of imported French wine was cheaper than the price of honey needed to make a gallon of mead.

By the 17th century, imports of cheap sugar from the West Indies reduced the importance of honey in the domestic economy. It stopped being essential to keep bees, and mead-making never really recovered, since it meant that the supply of honey was considerably reduced

Not sure how much of it requires verification, no sources were provided. MidgleyDJ 08:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)