Richard's Another Way of Making Meath
From EastKingdomWiki
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| Another Way of Making Meath | ||||||
| Recipe Source | ||||||
| The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, By Kenelm Digby | ||||||
| Brewer | ||||||
| Richard Heyworth | ||||||
| Panel Information | ||||||
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| Beverage Information | ||||||
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Brewing Details
- Brewer: Richard Heyworth
- Recipe Source: The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight
Original Recipe
Boil Sweet Bryar, Sweet Marjoram, Cloves and Mace in Spring-water, till the water taste of them. To four Gallons of water put one Gallon of honey, and boil it a little to skim and clarifie it. When you are ready to take it from the fire, put in a little Limon-peel, and pour it into a Woodden vessel, and let it stand till it is almost cold. Then put in some Ale-yest, and stir it altogether. So let it stand till next day. Then put a few stoned Raisins of the Sun into every bottle, and pour the Meath upon them. Stop the bottles close, and in a week the Meath will be ready to drink.
Redaction
Boil sweet briar rose, sweet marjoram, cloves, and mace in spring water, until the water tastes of these. Add one gallon of honey to four gallons of water, then boil to remove scum. Before you remove it from the fire, add a bit of lemon peel, then pour into a wooden vessel and let it cool. Once it is cool, add some ale yeast, then stir. Wait one day, then add some raisins into each bottle and pour the mead onto them. Close the bottles, and drink after a week.
Ingredients
- 1.5 gallons water (from the tap)
- 2 lbs Glorybee White Clover Honey
- 6 dried briar rose buds (ordered from TooGet via Amazon)
- 1.5 tsp marjoram (dried, from the grocery)
- 3 cloves (dried, from the grocery)
- 1.5 tsp mace (dried, from the grocery)
- Lemon peel (from the grocery)
- 12 raisins (from the grocery)
- 1 pkg Nottingham Ale Yeast
The recipe did not specify how much of the spices to add, so I took a look through my copy of Wellcome Mead and found that the author typically only used 1tsp of strong spices such as mace per gallon, so I aligned the mace and marjoram to that. Other recipes used either one or two cloves per gallon, so I went on the high side, to get more flavor. I wasn’t certain how many of the rose buds to use, but they didn’t see too fragrant to the nose, so I added several. This will likely need to be adjusted based on the final flavor of the mead.
Process and Notes
I wanted a gallon of mead, so I started with a gallon and a half of water from the tap, assuming that some would boil off and my fermenters would then be filled close to the top. I added the spices to the water and boiled in a modern metal pot on my electric stove. After a half hour, I added one quart of honey (2 lbs) and boiled it for another half hour, removing the scum as it rose. I then added a bit of lemon peel and poured into a one gallon ceramic fermenter. It was not as close to the top as I had hoped.
The next day, once it had cooled, I rehydrated and then added the ale yeast and set it to ferment in the ceramic. The following day, I felt that - if I bottled it at that point - I would have bottle bombs, so I instead racked the mead into a glass carboy. Assuming that I’d get about four bottles worth from a gallon of mead, and the recipe asked for “some” raisins in each bottle, I added 12 raisins to the carboy before pouring on the mead.
A week later, I bottled the mead into glass bottles.
Wellcome Mead suggests that the cooking process was typically done in metal at this time and fermentation in either ceramic or wood, so using a metal pot for boiling and a ceramic for primary fermentation made sense to me. Wellcome Mead also suggests that the modern glass wine bottle was invented in 1630 by Sir Kenhelm Digby, the author of the source for this mead, so it is likely that he would have bottled in his own glass bottles - for this reason, I felt the glass carboy and glass bottles I now use would be appropriate. I used a period wooden spoon for all stirring and scumming.
Finally, an illustration from 1660 in Wellcome Mead shows an image of an innkeeper covered in wine bottles and grapes. The shape of the glass in his hand suggests a glass goblet would be appropriate for the time period of this mead recipe.
References
- Digby, Kenelm, 1669. The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby, Project Gutenberg, accessed online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16441/16441-h/16441-h.htm
- Angotti, Laura, 2019.Wellcome Mead. Mt. Golbia Miscellany Publishing.
Panel Results
- Documentation: 13/15
- Authenticity: 12/15
- Complexity: 10/15
- Exploration: 6.7/15
- Aesthetics: 8/10
- Workmanship: 26.3
- Final Score: 76/100