Bark in mead?

I'm reading The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz and there's a section he includes of various meads that were brought to a festival. Some of them contain "birch, sweet birch, black birch, white oak bark, red spruce, etc." So what's the deal? Do anyone of you have experience with using these things in making mead? I'd be very interested to try.

 

I would guess it would add flavor such as oak does to many wines.

 

That's what I was thinking. But there's so little information on it that I can't get a grasp of what to do.

 

Just makes me think of various 'teas' we made camping back when I was a kid. Took a quick look at one recipe online:

http://northernwoodlands.org/knots_and_bolts/black-birch-tea

might be related to what they mean?

 

Hm, well I guess that's one way to utilize birch, then. That "tea" could be the must, maybe. Cool stuff.

 

Would still need the honey, but added twigs maybe? dunno, would be interested to hear if you find out!!

 

This style of brewing is reserved for canines.
Us humans are forbidden to use this method.

 

Lol paps, if you want clean bark a local brew supply will normally have it. If you are a gangster go outside and chop off some bark from a tree then dry it out and use it! Anyways bark can add a strong flavor to the point it over powers everything so experiment but start with small amounts.

 

Reading the same book.

1. He's ****ing crazy at times. He goes off the deep end alluding to the "health benefits" of fermented goods, while denying claims, in this pseudo- "I'm not telling you it'll cure cancer but it will" sort of way... (BTW, he has AIDS, and has that whole thing about how someone mistakenly read in his other book that it helped cure AIDS, but he wasn't saying such... I'm glad for the disclaimers, but then he also just lets the stuff run rampant as long as it doesn't actually state something as overtly as that). He also isn't very damned clean. I agreed with him that cleanliness is more important that sanitation in today's world (people are seriously OCD about using sanitizers), but then he talks about "oh just skim that infection off and it'll still be good" or "yeah, people through a lot of food in the trash. You can TOTALLY go dumpster diving for strawberries and fruit with some pre-existing mold on them to ferment. It's HEALTHY!!"....

IDGAF if you're starting with fresh ingredients what their sources are.. I don't really like the idea of using decaying-in-a-way-I-don't-necessarily-control ingredients...

Other than that, I don't mind his stuff on process and the breadth of fermentations from other cultures that he goes into. It's just I prefer to take some of the stuff he says with a grain a salt.

2. check out the thread on Tej.... african mead with sticks. (he covers it in the book, but at least on the forum there's people who have done it and posted pics.)

 

I felt the same way. Yes, lots of "just skim this mold plug off and it'll be good to go". Tej has been interesting me for bit now, and I'd love to do a batch. Well, since it's winter, I'm going to dry me some birch bark and maybe some spruce. I'm already doing a tree sap batch in the spring, so...

 

Let us know how the tree sap one goes.. Especially if you're just going to go straight sap rather than syrup (or if you're going to "jack" the sugars up in the sap via freezing rather than carmelizing a syrup). I had toyed with that idea before..

 

I plan to leave the sap (either birch or maple) as is and use it as the water for the must. It'll be just a 1gal batch probably.

 

I remember as a kid chewing on the root of a birch tree and it tasted like birch beer soda. So.. why not?

 

Didn't even think about the roots. Good idea.