Old Mead Recipes

I recently got into brewing after a few failed Mr. Beer attempts, and after recently getting some old wine making equipment including 3 glass carboys from my grandfather. He gave me a book American Wines and Wine-Making that he used as a guidebook when he brewed. My grandfather has always made wine but while looking through the book I found 2 pieces of paper with what are said to be quite old mead recipes, typed on them. He's always kept bees and always has quarts of honey around, but I don't think he's ever tried his hand at mead. One of the recipes is for a 1 gallon batch that I think I may try soon. I think they were a neat find and thought I'd share them with everyone!


Mead1
Mead2

That's an awesome find!

I love the "yeast, 1/2 cake, spread on bit of toast, floating"

If you do try this - please post the results! I'm not sure about the whole "simmering with the egg whites" part.

I'm sure it'll be "authentic" but I prefer the refined mead making style myself.

I'm pretty sure the egg is for clarifying but needless to say I may leave that ingredient out and just pitch some good modern-day yeast.

jw93ls said:

I'm pretty sure the egg is for clarifying but needless to say I may leave that ingredient out and just pitch some good modern-day yeast.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've read that they used egg-whites in the past for clarifying...

Hell, I may try this, complete with bread raft for the yeast (I'm assuming "butter" side down )

the recipes that include cloves, well those I'd reduce down considerably.

On the basis of what Joe Matiolli says in the JAO recipe about too much clove. they are surprisingly potent little critters and it's easy to use too much and end up with something undrinkable.

Otherwise, interesting to read, and no I wouldn't include the egg whites etc, I'd just use more modern ingredients where I can.....

jw93ls said:

I'm pretty sure the egg is for clarifying but needless to say I may leave that ingredient out and just pitch some good modern-day yeast.

Click to expand...

No no no! You've gotta follow that recipe to a 'T'. Or else it wont come out the way it was intended!!!!!

B_ChiZ said:

No no no! You've gotta follow that recipe to a 'T'. Or else it wont come out the way it was intended!!!!!

Click to expand...

No of course it won't, but if you read some of the recipe detail, things like "yeast cake" is rare as rocking horse ****. So obviously, you're not gonna get what was originally intended by the recipe are you.

There's no reason why you won't get something close though. It depends on analysis of the recipe i.e. why was the egg white in there in the first place ? I can't think of any other reason than clearing - like when some recipes include "Irish Moss" or bentonite. They're only there to assist with the clearing, they don't do anything else so there should be little reason why they couldn't be omitted initially and the clearing carried out by different method.

The biggest difference would be to do with the yeast anyway, so if you can't get the identical strain (which is unlikely as none of recipe state which one was actually used originally) you're not gonna get the same are you.

It's the same with JAO. The Fleischmans stuff isn't available here so I can only use the nearest equivalent - plus, as Joe comes from the US, his measurements would be in US gallons, whereas seeing "gallon", I'd automatically make a batch to 1 imp gallon, which is likely to be less sweet as there's about 3/4's of a litre difference. It still makes a good brew though, so there's probably little to worry over.....

Just my 2 cents

regards

fatbloke

Eggwhite was used to clarify, same as we use bentonite in wine. You can use either. They merely serve to mop up particles that are kept in suspension be static and do not affect flavor.

What is the purpose of floating the yeasts cake on the toast?

Urkelbot said:

What is the purpose of floating the yeasts cake on the toast?

Click to expand...

I can only speculate, but i suspect it was for nutrients. Or a way to rehydrate the yeast.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Home Brew mobile app

Very cool...keep us updated.