Medieval mead: a ‘must’ for a Quest

Our Mead-ieval Quest got off to a great start when I rolled up my sleeves and started to make something I can only hope will do justice to the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage. I mentioned before that I wanted to get right to the heart of mead, and what better way to do that than to explore how it’s made? So a few weeks ago we embarked on a new adventure, and started brewing our own.

Image result for medieval brewing images

Here goes! Off on a new Quest…

Having never brewed anything more than a half decent cup of tea before, this was completely new territory. Nowadays you have to sterilise everything before you start, so after passing the demijohn, the funnel and all the squiggly bits of equipment through the special booze-makers’ formula, I put a litre of water into a saucepan and when it was just warm enough, I emptied a huge pot of honey into it. Once the honey had dissolved we carefully poured this, together with some more water into the fermenter through the funnel, leaving a gap of a few inches at the top so the fermenting process could get going. The recipe we’re following is for Orange Mead, so I added a whole orange cut into segments, pips and all, along with a handful of raisins before shaking the living daylights out of it to aerate the ‘must’, as it’s now called.

The must.jpg

The ‘Must’ – all ready to go…

Finally it was time to add the all-important yeast. Full of anticipation, I emptied the sachet into the neck of the demijohn. It was then that my lovely mead mixture went all cloudy and I thought I must have done something wrong. Luckily, it seems that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do, so I stopped panicking and consulted the notes as to what to do next. The answer was to give it some space.

Adding the Yeast

Adding the yeast

So the demijohn took up residence in a cosy corner of our kitchen pantry to do its thing. There then followed what seemed like a little miracle. Within a couple of hours, the mixture had started fizzing and bubbling. It became quite lively. The next day it seemed positively animated, and I began to feel as though we were playing host to an important house guest. I kept checking on it to see if it was alright. I started worrying about it. Was it comfortable? Warm enough? Perhaps it was bored. So I gave it something to read – a castle book, so it could learn all about where it came from. It seemed to be content, because the fizzing and bubbling continued for a couple of weeks. It was around this time that I decided our effervescent house guest needed a name.

Sticky Rogers reading.JPG

Our bubbly little house guest

This isn’t unusual, of course. Many alcoholic beverages have names, such as Old Peculiar Beer or Kraken Rum, so we set our minds to a fitting title. Several suggestions later, I hit upon the one that won the day. It occurred as I was wiping up a small amount of tacky honey that had escaped a jar onto the shelf. As I bemoaned the fact that the castle book had stuck to it, an image popped into my head of my daughter’s favourite childhood toy. So I named it after Maddie’s adored little furry owl. It is, therefore, with a sense of optimistic joy that I name this mead:

Sticky Rogers

Or to give it it’s full title: Templeton’s Sticky Rogers Medieval Mead

Recently, though, it seems that Sticky Rogers has gone to sleep. This time I worried that he might have died, but after consulting my mead guru at 24/7 Homebrew, I learned that he has, in fact, moved on to the second stage of fermentation. The mad fizzing part is over, and things are progressing as they should. Good news indeed.

So now it’s a case of ‘Do not disturb’. And we wait. In the meantime, I’m learning all about this amazing drink, and lining up a few nice bottles to try out…

41 thoughts on “Medieval mead: a ‘must’ for a Quest”

    • Thanks Malc. Yes, I’m with you on the lack of patience thing, but at least we’ve got a fair few ready-made varieties to try out in the meantime. Hic…

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  6. Oh my goodness, I laughed out loud at: “Was it comfortable? Warm enough? Perhaps it was bored. So I gave it something to read – a castle book, so it could learn all about where it came from.” Too funny! Love the name and it sounds like the mead is coming along beautifully – great job, Alli! I knew you could it 🙂

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    • Thanks Robyn! Things are looking good for Sticky Rogers, but only time will tell – I just hope it tastes as good as it looks! Glad to have made you laugh 😀 It was quite amusing and good fun settling our mead into the house… 😉

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  8. So, how old does he have to be before you can kill him (drink him)? Great name by the way.

    My parents used to brew things like Elderberry wine and had a load of it in their pantry. I remember it all blowing up one night and lifting the concrete slab!

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    • I did worry about a Sticky Rogers (goodness knows how Maddie came up with that name aged 3, but it’s always made us giggle) explosion at one point when he was particularly busy… I think we’ve got away with it now though. It must have been fun to all that Elderberry wine fizzing away in your parents’ pantry…

      It depends how sweet we want it as to when we can drink it. Sweet is sooner, so I’ll probably go for sweet. In which case, possibly Christmas, if not hopefully New Year… Fingers crossed it all goes well. Hic 😀

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