jspclk said:
-Irish moss- I’m a fan of scotch so this one intrigues me, I saw this is some old mead recipes, though I don’t know where to get it here or what the result would be?
Hello jspclk -- welcome to the forums!
Irish moss in mead recipes is kind of a cross over from home brewing. Old time mead recipes put together by homebrewers recommended Irish moss as a fining ingredient, going by their experience of using Irish moss in home brewing.
Back in the 1970's and 1980's, meadmaking among homebrewers was mostly an unexplored territory. They used ideas they were already familiar with.
Take a look at the *original* recipe for Barkshack Ginger Mead, not the one you'll find in Charlie Papanzian's published books, but the *first* one printed out prior to TCJHB book. This was posted by Jeff Renner on the Hist-Brewing Digest. You can see it here:
http://www.pbm.com/pipermail/hist-brewing/2001/002769.html
but here's his post -- take a good look and you'll see the influence of early 1970's homebrewing on meadmaking:
--------------[snip!]------------------------------
Well, my copy of _The New Revised and More Joy of Homebrewing_ is
dated 1976 and 1980, leading me to believe that the original dates
from 1976. It's 6"x8.5", 88 pages, soft cover stapled in the middle.
It's not typeset, just typed on a typewriter (almost certainly before
word processors), with very 70's line drawings.
His Barkshack Gingermead recipe differed from the one in his later
_Complete Joy of Homebrewing_ (p.45):
Boil one hour:
2 gallons water
6 lbs. honey
2-4 oz. freshly grated gingerroot
2 lbs. corn sugar
1/8-1/4 teaspoon irish moss if available (minute
quantities will aid in clarifying brews)
1 oz. hops
1 teaspoon citric acid
The boiling of the honey may be a necessary aid in clarifying the mead.
Sparge [!] the wort into a pail. Add a necessary amount of water of
water to bring the total a bit above 5 gallons. Beginning specific
gravity should read about 1.055.
Add:
2 teaspoons yeast nutrient (honey is deficient in yeast-type vitamins). ...
finishing hops
and beer yeast when cooled
Quaint, huh? His later recipes had more honey and less sugar and
some other minor changes.
I made a mead in the mid 70s, and it was very dry to the point of
austerity. I suspect that I used citric acid or an acid mix, and
probably tannin as well. I made it a sparkling mead, and that
increased the acidity, of course, from the CO2. I never drank it
all, and I think I threw out the remaining bottles when we moved a
few years later. It might have been good by now!
As Dan mentions, in 1986, Charlie Papazian wrote a twenty page
postscript to the 170+ page, 1948 English publication, Wassail! In
Mazers of Mead, by Lt. Colonel Robert Gayre, Gayre & Nigg [what a
family name!]. It was called _Brewing Mead_, with the original title
as a sub-title. The original was pretty dry reading, as I recall. I
don't remember much useful from it, and looking over it now doesn't
inspire me to reread it. But I guess it made Charlie some money, and
it was no doubt his original interest in mead that reawakened
interest in meadmaking along with the homebrew revival.
We really were wandering in the wilderness back in the 70s when I
first started brewing.
Jeff
--
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, c/o nerenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
)
