Happy Mead Maker

Where I make mead; pear and rosemary mead; and quince and spice mead.



Mead is a magical elixir made from honey.  Among other things, it's know as the drink of the gods.  It's said to have the power to grant you insight into the unseen realm - which is surely true if you consume enough of any alcoholic drink.

Then again, the bees are said to travel between this world and the next, as messengers to the gods and the dead.  That's one of the reasons why the mythology of bees says we must tell the hive the household news each day.  Imbibing a drink made from the nectar of such supernatural messengers must grant some special powers, if only temporary.

I have read about mead from time to time, in poetry and literature, but always believed it was far too complex for me to try making.  Until recently, none of the local shops carried it, or if they did, it was beyond my price range.  But recently, I've grown more enamoured with the idea of mead.  I have found numerous mentions of mead through my research into medieval and iron age cooking.  Giving my new found courage (and decent level of success) with fermenting and increasing desire to keep bees, I have decided it is time to try mead.

I first tried some mead at a medieval event, it was berry mead and to my taste, it was very sweet.  But good, and surprisingly strong alcohol content.  But still a bit yeasty (I get flushed from yeast) so I imagine it would have been even better with another racking and 6 months more ageing.  Then I discovered some mead in a liquor store.  Two brands from Vancouver Island, actually - although it was all fruit and berry mead, with only one bottle of spiced mead, which was as close as I could get to unflavoured.  So I brought a bottle of spiced mead home and have an oz of it every now and again.  It helps settle my stomach if it's still upset at bedtime - an added benefit.

Deciding that yes, I like mead, it is now time to make some of my own.


Following the instructions from Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, I combined 1 part raw honey with 4 parts room temperature water, mixed very well and left in a wide mouth container, stirring at least three times a day, for about a week until it looks like there is yeast active (small bubbles, froth, taste and smell).  Then it goes in a jug with an air lock to bubble away.  Once it's finished bubbling, I'll taste it and rack it (move it into a different jug with an airlock to aerate the mead and re-activate the yeast).  I don't know how long I'm going to age the mead before bottling, there are some meads that age for years before bottling, others are drunk in a matter of weeks.  I think it will depend on what else is going on in my life and how it tastes to determine when I'm ready to bottle it.  For these first few stages, I have it upstairs at room temperature, but once I rack it, I think it will go downstairs where it is cooler.

The first batch looked good, so why not try some more?

I had a hand full of pears that missed being made into Parry this year, so I thought why not pear and rosemary?  It's a good pairing - ha ha - as I've used this combination as a sauce for pork.

The quince tree only had two quinces.  Quite frankly, I can't seem to like quince very much, it's kind of coy tasting and very strong smelling.  But I don't want to waste them, so I decided to try for a Quince Poudre Douce tasting mead.  Quince, pepper, ginger, cinnamon stick, and some anise (because they look so pretty).

pear and rosemary

 To make flavoured mead, at least according to Sandor Katz, is to slice up your fruit very fine and add them to the mead during the open vessel stage.  Proceed as per normal mead, and strain when you put it in the jug.

quince and spice

The fruit has natural yeast on it, so it will usually start to ferment faster than honey on it's own.  However, certain processing and herbicides in commercial fruit may have adverse effects if you are capturing wild yeast like I did, so please use organic or home grown fruit.


For the fruit mead, I used less honey as the fruit already has plenty of sugar.  I did 1 part honey for 5 parts water.

These are just small batches one gallon, or in the case of the first mead, half a gallon.  These tastes combinations may be completely horrid!  But from what I've read, if the mead tastes terrible, leave it for six months to four years, and it could improve... or else, you may have killed the offending taste buds in the interim.

During the open pot method while I was stirring three times a day, I was amazed with how the smell of the fruit mead changed.  At first the pear and rosemary smelt horridly medical, the rosemary was overpoweringly antiseptic. But after a couple of days, the smell of the herbs subsided and it started smelling strongly of pears left too long in the sun.  By the end of the week, it was quite pleasant smelling, a nice balance of herb and fruit, although it tasted overpoweringly of sweet and yeast at that time.  The quince and spice started out smelling of nothing at all, then after a day it started smelling of sickly sweet quince.  The quince smell grew sweeter and more pungent until it was rank, almost rotten, on the fifth day.   I almost tossed the batch, but instead on the 6th day it suddenly didn't smell revolting any more and started to smell like pepper with a hint of quince.  I didn't taste it when I put it in the jug, but I think it will be okay...

...eventually.

This process is simple, albeit fruit fly generating.  I can't believe I ever imagined it would be difficult.  It is a nice way to use up small amounts of fruit, berries, and other goodies laying around.  I'm looking forward to finding out how these little experiments taste in a few months time.


I think that making mead at home is an affordable way to make a nice sipping alcoholic drink.  Considering it costs about $25 for a 750ml bottle at the local liquor store, as opposed to the $12 starting price for a drinkable plonk (wine),  you don't need much honey to make a bottle of mead.  About 1/2 to 2/3rds of a cup aught to do it, which is about $1.30 per homebrew bottle of mead.  Would be less if you make mead from gleaned fruit and use less honey per water ratio.  Although making mead doesn't take much active time, it does require a lot of waiting, I'm told, to make a good mead.  So perhaps it is worth the extra twenty three dollars not having to take up space and carboy waiting for the mead to age.

Honey has many health benefits and mead also has a long tradition of healing qualities.  I only know some of the cultural mythologies that surround this elixir, but I suspect there are some scientific studies out there for those who care to look.  Of course, like all alcoholic drinks, moderation is key.  A little everyday is said to help your health, however, too much... well, you've all seen the government warnings I'm sure.

Allergies:  Homebrewing something like mead is nice because you can avoid a lot of allergies like sulphites (or was that sulphates?), extra ingredients, and can brew it long enough so that all the yeast is exhausted.  Keep in mind, some people have negative reactions to honey and alcohol.

Vintage orange juicer

Actually, what more can I say?  It's a circa 1950s orange juicing device.  

It's also the most efficient orange juice I've ever used - and I've used a few in my day.  Very easy to squeeze and more importantly, it's super fast to clean.

first we slice the orange into quarters

place each quarter in the juicer and sqeeze

the juice is collected in a reservoir, as you can see when I remove the strainer

and there we go, one orange worth of juice.
Not much, I know, but it was really the wrong kind of orange for this.

2 recipes: hot cross buns and sourdough hot cross buns

Earlier I talked about how to convert a regular yeast bread recipe to a sourdough recipe.  Although the theory is pretty straight forward, I've always felt rather intimidated by the idea of trying it.

Finally, my desire for sourdough hot cross buns overcame my fear of failure, and I set to work converting an old favourite recipe from commercial yeast to sourdough.

This first recipe come from one of my all time favourite bread (and cake books) Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal   It's out of print now, but if you ever see a copy at a second hand bookshop or yard sale, snatch it up.  Not only is it full of yummy bread recipes, the decidedly sexiest attitude is always good for a laugh.

Hot Cross Buns

Easter Buns with frosting crosses - traditionally served on Good Friday

1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 eggs
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (about)
3/4 cup currants
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water
white frosting (recipe below)

• Scald milk,add sugar, salt and shortening; cool to luke warm.
• Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
• Add eggs, yeast and 1c flour to milk mixture; beat with electric mixer at medium speed about 2 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.  Stir in currants and enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that is easy to handle.  Beat well.  Place in lightly greased bowl' turn dough over to grease top.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.  Punch down.  Turn onto lightly floured board.
• Roll or pat to 1/2" thickness.  Cut in rounds with 2.5" bisket cutter; shape cutouts in buns.  Place about 1.5" apart on greased baking sheets.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• With a very sharp knife, cut a shallow cross on top of each bun.  Brush tops wit unbeaten egg white mixed with cold water.
• Bake in moderate oven (375F) 15 minutes  or until golden brown.  Cool on wire racks about 5 minutes.  Then with tip of knife or teaspoon, fill in the crosses on buns with White Frosting.  Best served Warm.  Makes about 18 buns.

White Frosting: Combine 1c. sifted confectioners sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 2 Tbs hot water.  Mix until smooth.

Now, the above recipe makes a decent hot cross bun, but I do usually add spices and candied peal to it.  I also find it a wee bit sweet for my taste, particularly the frosting.

This next recipe takes a long time to make, but it's so worth it.  I recommend making the sponge in the morning, the first part of the dough late in the evening, leaving it to rise overnight, then shape and do the second rise in the morning.  The buns should be ready for late afternoon on the second day.  Doing the second rise overnight ends up drying out the surface of the buns before they go in the oven which makes them hard to cut.

It's also very difficult to photograph these hot cross buns.  By the time I have the props and camera ready, the buns are all eaten.  Three days of baking from dawn till 3am the next day and I finally learned to hide the buns while they cool so that they didn't get snatched up.  (I did a lot of test batches and testing, so I'm confident they are fantastic).

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

A word about Sponge.  Although the word sponge can mean different things in various parts of the word, I use it here to mean a fairly active runny batter like substance made of sourdough starter, flour and water.  Make the sponge at least 4 hours before you plan to begin the bread.  I usually make mine the night before.  Mix at least 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup water (or more) and at least 1/8th cup sourdough starter.  Mix them well to make a runny batter, and leave in a warm corrner of the kitchen, covered with a cotton or linen towel.  After a few hours, depending on your temperature, the weather, whatnot, it should be bubbling.  You know the yeast is active in it.  If you leave it more than 24 hours, you need to feed it again.

1/4 cup sourdough sponge
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup honey/maple syrup/or other sweet liquid (I use the juice the fruit is candied in if there is any left over)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter/lard/or other fat (butter is best)
3 eggs
less than 4 cups flour (your choice but I recommend the first cup be all purpose or bread flour).
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup candied ginger (optional)
1/2 cup other dried or candied fruit or peal
pinch each nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves

• Scald milk, add honey, salt, butter.  cool to luke warm.
• In a big bowl, add eggs, sponge, 1 cup of flour, and milk mixture.  Mix a lot.  What you are trying to do here is to blend everything and activate the gluten in the flour.  It takes about 5 to 6 minutes to mix this by hand.  I do it in 2 min sessions, with a min or two rest in between.  Wooden spoon is my favourite tool for this.  Alternately, you could mix in electric mixer for 2 min.
• Add spices, and fruit, mix some more.
• Mix in the flour a little at a time until a soft dough forms.  Should be barely firm enough for you to handle.
• Place in a lightly greased bowl, grease the top of the dough, and cover with a linen or cotton towel.  Rise until double in size.  Even with a very active sourdough starter, THIS TAKES A LONG TIME SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO DO THIS OVERNIGHT.
• Punch down and break off egg sized balls of dough.  Form into bun shapes and place in a lightly greased tray or baking pan.  Cover and raise till double in size.
• Carefully cut the cross in the top with a VERY sharp knife.  Optional:brush with egg white mixed with 1 Tbs of cold water.
• Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 min.  

I'm not bothering with the egg wash (I don't like egg whites much, especially with bread) or frosting, but feel free to do it if you like.

Ideas for fruit to put in them: dried currents, dried cherries  dried raisins  dried peal, freshly grated organic citrus peal, candied peal, dried pineapples, dried anything... make sure you pit and chop up anything bigger than a raison.  My favourite is to get the chunky runny marmalade they have in Europe and strain off the juices (use this instead of honey) and the chunks of orange as the fruit for the bun.

Healthy: well, um.  I don't recommend  eating as many as I have this week.  But hey it's only once a year and when compared with commercial made hot cross buns full of highly processed ingredients and florescent coloured lemon peal like substance, YES they are much healthier.

Affordable:  I have no idea.  I don't even want to price these out, they are so delicious.  They do however help use up the left over dried fruit you have in the back of the cupboard... that's got to count for something I suppose.

These are NOT suitable to serve to your Vegan Friends because of the egg, honey, butter, &c.  See this vegan friendly recipe for hot cross buns.

Allergies: This is fairly easy to modify for allergies.  I don't recomend cutting down on eggs and butter though, it is what makes the dish.  If these are the things you are allergic to, then please make the vegain version I just linked to in the last paragraph.

 

A lunch for my first Transition

There is a group of people in town who are learning skills for what they call the Transition.  Basically their idea is that the way of life we have is heavily dependent on limited resources like oil.  Eventually these resources will start to run out and the way of life as we know it will drastically change.  Everything from pre-fab food shipped from long distances to fancy cell phones, to fuel for our cars, to readily available clothing... all these things will be gone!  Poof!  Or, more likely, fizzle.

To make this change easier, this Transition group hopes to acquire skills we need for our community to be (more or less) self sufficient.  They want to help people learn to grow their own food, save their own seeds, find methods of transportation that rely on as little petro as possible, and even make their own clothes.

Transitions group exist all over, and are a 'global grassroots movement supporting citizen action toward reducing oil dependence and building local community resilience and ecological sustainability' (Transistion Victoria).  Pretty cool eh?

And right up my ally.

So I've been helping to pull flax.  This is part of The Linen Project  where members of the community make linen from scratch.  Using mostly hand tools at this point, they do tend to complain about how much work it is - obviously they aren't homesteaders at heart - but in my opinion, learning that a way of life not dependent on a big industrial complex is hard work, the sooner they stop dreaming and idealizing the future, the better. (end of rant)

If pulling flax is hard work, I'm going to need a lunch!

First thing I did was run out to the garden and pick some grapes.  Delicious.  It is a Transition event after all, I should at least have one food in my lunch that I grew myself.

Two ume onigiri, one wakami furikake onigiri (they are the rice balls), home grown grapes (the best kind in my opinion), and a soy-free chocolate pumpkin made by Denman Island chocolate (a local company and my guilty little pleasure)

I warped my drink container in the cloth so it wouldn't sweat too much in my bag.

The wrapping makes it so that there is a handle on the other side.  It's very cute and convenient 

I also made a mini-bento for when I got home in case I was too tried to make a snack.

Wakami furikake onigiri and nukazuke carrots.



As a side note: I like the idea of Transition and will be looking into this further.  What Whole Wheat Pastafarian wouldn't?

But I worry that the people I met who are engaging in Transition activities are too firmly set in their middle class capitalistic mind set.  Living a life without oil is going to take more than a few mornings volunteering in a picturesque setting talking with your friends, complaining about how much hard work it is.

If things are really going to hell in a hand basket, maybe they should look to the past instead of spending all their free time reading books about the impending doom.  The idea of free time being another luxury that they would be wise to transition away from.

There are still people alive (I live with two of them) who remember harvesting in the fields by hand, know how to properly tie grain sheaths, &c.  There are also enough manuals and writings from the last two hundred years to provide the basic understanding.  There are also people like me who are already more than half way transitioned - I sew on a treadle sewing machine for goodness sake.  Relying on info from a couple of core books over those who have lived it and are living it now... that seems like a steady road to folly to me.

But simply my opinion.

Maybe transition needs to start like this?

I hope to participate more in this project, if only because I love textiles so much.  But as a first expierence, I'm a bit underwhelmed.

Yummy Bento Lunch shared on:

Cider making time

Last year we were inspired by an article on how to make apple cider (the hard kind) in Mother Earth News. We harvested all the apples off the large, heritage trees that live on our farm and juiced them...by hand, using a kitchen counter juicer.  It took forever because you have to chop the apples by hand into tiny pieces in order for them to fit in the juicer.  Hardly seems worth it, that is, until you drink the finished cider... yummy!

This year, we are doing things a little bit differently.

Brand new, home made, apple press.  The Capitan spent a few weeks putting this together in his spare time. Considering that it's made from 100% reclaimed wood, it's amazing how well it works.

I think we got more juice per apple last year, but for the amount of work we put in (friends love to come over and help you press apples when you have a nifty toy they can play with), this is far, far, far less work per pint of juice.

We have two demijohns full so far and enough apples still on the trees to fill one or two more.  Notice the large amount of head space in the demijohn... last year, we learned to leave extra because it froths up like crazy.

How We Make  (hard) Apple Cider

There must be hundreds of different ways of making cider (note, just assume that I mean cider as alcohol made from apples in this context).  Ours is pretty simple.  We don't have a lot of gadgets to test for sugar or gravity or whatever.  We also don't mind if we get a huge jar of vinegar.  I use it for everything from rinsing my hair to cleaning the house.  Natural vinegar is barely affordable these days, so making our own would be just fine.  un/fortunately, we haven't managed to make vinegar yet.  Just really yummy, really strong cider.

Note: we don't juice anything that has touched the ground.  We have chickens, and sheep, and goats, and ducks that live under the fruit trees and they tend to poop a lot.  Although it probably isn't a big issue, we like to be extra safe as we are not pasteurizing the juice before we ferment it.  So if it's been on the ground, it does not go in the juicer.

What you need:

• Big, food safe, sterilized vessel that can be sealed with an airlock (like a demijohn or carboy - aka, big glass jar, or a designated plastic pale with an airtight lid and airlock)
• An airlock - something to let the extra gas out so that it don't explode and make mess, but not let the air in.
• Lots of fresh, un-treated, un-pasteurized, apple juice.

If you are getting your apple juice from somewhere else, then it may be treated with chemicals, heat or UV light.  This won't ferment naturally.  Sometimes you can add yeast or other You-Brew goodies, but sometimes even this won't work.  See the Mother Earth News article for more info.

We simply juice our own apples, which are grown without chemical spray, and put the juice directly in the demijohn.  Then we put the airlock on top, carry it to the basement, and leave it to ferment at about 65 to 68 degrees F.  for a few months.

When we feel like it we rack it - transfer it to another similar container.  We are careful to leave any sediment behind and this helps to clarify it a little bit.

Then, about 4 to 8 months from when we first started, we bottle the cider using the honey method described in the article I linked to.  We melt some honey in hot water (how much depends on how much juice we have) and then add the cider to the honey.  Then we bottle it in high-pressure bottles, and leave it downstairs for a month or two.

That's it.  Tastes really good, but one does need to be careful when feeding this to guests that might be driving home later.  Last year's cider is what I call, three hour cider - aka, how many hours our guests have to wait until they can safely drive home after drinking one bottle on an empty stomach.


Note: if you want to make cider yourself, please do a bit of research on health and safety procedures.  I didn't go into them much here, but the article I cited earlier does have a nice overview.  Also, there are places in the world, including some rather large chunks of North America, where it is not legal to brew your own homebrew.  It's your responsibility to know the local laws before you start, or at least before you start bragging about it.