Making the Black Mead of Medieval France - Bochet

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose

#tastinghistory #mead #medieval

[MeMe-Moi]

Just a note to anyone who tries this: make sure you get food or brewing quality wood. Don't just use any old wood from Lowe's or the lumber yard as it may be treated with wood preservatives that are definitely not safe for human consumption (case in point, arsenic was used in wood preservative within living memory and can still be found in older structures). In the name of safety, just purchase the wood chips from a brewing store or the grilling section of a grocery store (they sell bags of wood chips for smoking and grilling most places you can buy a barbecue or at some grocery stores, or just check online)

[marcusmoonstein]

To anybody who wants to try this recipe, please NEVER add water to boiling honey. The water will instantly turn to steam and cause a "steam explosion", splattering boiling hot honey everywhere. The correct technique is to let the honey cool to just under 100 C (say to about 90 C) and only then add the water. Once the water has been added then bring the temperature back up to boiling to reduce as per normal. This will have no effect on the taste of the final product but will be a heck of a lot safer. (From a homebrewer who has made his share of meads).

[agimagi]

I love how the subtitles change mead for me sometimes: "Kings around this period were enarmored with me" and "Sadly it was not long after this period that the popularity of me began to wane"

[rlborger]

I am a brewer of beer and mead. I had friends who kept bees. One October, 27 years ago, they brought me a gallon of black (end of season) honey. It was almost like molasses. I made black mead from it. I first tasted it after 5 years aging in the bottle and was not impressed. It sat in our laundry room for another 22 years. Earlier this year I pulled out another bottle and opened it amongst brewing friends. HOLY CRAP, it was better than the best Port we had ever consumed. It was a WONDERFUL. It now resides in my beverage refrigerator where it will remain until the appropriate special occasion requires an extra special toast. BTW, all the warnings of the previous posters must be observed for your safety.

[frnsworth]

I started making mead because of that original episode. Four years later and I still make it several times a year. I have about two gallons aging now. Thank you!

[chrisbiebel]

A lot of people assume that since mead is made with honey, that it has to be sweet. What they don't realize is that fermentation is turning sugar into alcohol, so that if you fully ferment it, it will actually be very dry. In fact, unlike grains, which have about 25% or so sugars are aren't easily fermentable by the yeast (and part of the reason why hops is added to beer, besides the preservative nature of them, to balance the sweetness of the wort), almost all the sugars in honey are easily fementable by the yeasts.

Also, I heard an interesting idea on why mead became less popular. It was more of a northern European drink because southern Europe could easily make wine. In northern Europe, the honey was cheaper because the Catholic Church needed the beeswax for candles in the churches, so beekeeping was largely subsidized by the sale of the wax to the church (or in the case of monasteries, just used to make the candles).With the Protestant Reformation, there was a lot of rejection of the ornateness of the Catholic rituals, so the need for beeswax candles in religious rituals waned, lowering the amount of money made from selling the wax, driving up the price of the honey to compensate, except in parts of northern Europe where Catholicism was still strong (like Poland). The extra cost of making mead then made it rarer.

[lymb]

"Your father gave his life for this mead, " is something some poor kid might very well have actually heard

[DaveAwesome]

"They don't make saints like that anymore." LOL

[kpaenen]

Belgian here! Some breweries here who still ferment the "old school" way in wooden barrels indeed don't use airlocks but a "bom" (bomb or bung). The "bomgat" or bunghole was indeed covered by straw or cloth and then a weight or "bom" was added. This weight could've been a wooden disk, but some breweries I visited used a billiard ball as weight. With pressure building up, the CO2 then briefly lifts the ball up to degass.

For the dutch readers, this is indeed the origin of the expression "het vat is bomvol": the barrel is filled to the "bom".

[FrikInCasualMode]

Polish nobility did love mead a lot. One of our princes refused to join a crusade for Holy Land in an official letter to the Pope, citing lack of mead there as a reason. He wrote that his knights would not be able to deal with the lack of their favorite drink, making them useless in fighting.
IMO pretty good reason to stay home LOL

[Gafgarion]

Great example of why it's "water before acid, and everything's placid" in chemistry class.

[themini_b]

Made a mead once using orange blossom honey with blueberries, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, coriander and some grains. Then aged it with a toasted oak stick for about a year. It was absolutely incredible. The flavor was so rich and complex without being overly or under sweet, it was like having a religious experience with each sip. It was the best batch I ever made by a wide margin. I was convinced that day that Kvasir himself must've blessed that brew because of how much better it was than anything else I made before it.

[mr.jglokta]

"and she was upset..." one of the greatest understatements in history 😂

[dell]

Is there anyone else that believes that Max deserves a TV show way more than half the people on the actual History channel? I've learned more ACTUAL history from you than any source that immediately comes to mind, with the exception of reading an actual book about the topic. I love the focus on real everyday life (which would of course be present on any history based on food!) Love your content in general!

[drumminfool]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any instructions on sanitization: STRONGLY recommend you sanitize everything that is going to be used in the fermentation process using something like StarSan. The jar, the air lock, the spoons, the bowls you use, your hands, EVERYTHING (except perhaps the pot you're going to heat everything in, pretty sure the heat would kill any wild yeast). In any case, cleanliness and sterilization is essential for safe and tasty home brewing. Don't skip it!

[ArthurianFables]

"gross calling it blisters bursting but thats how they called it" and thats exactly how it looks like! if more recipes were this good at descriptions, people would have an easier time cooking lol.

[TisHotMessHistory]

It's so interesting to learn how the measuring quantities have varied throughout the years.

[pocaluneksmierci]

As a Pole I gotta compliment your effort on pronouncing the Polish names other things 💅 well done! I was well impressed!

[thescatologistcopromancer]

I recently worked for a meadery here in New England. The owner HATED the bochet we made but I loved it

[thehoennbazaar]

2 tips for safer brewing to anyone wanting to follow along: Fill the airlock with vodka instead of water to prevent bacteria growth in the airlock while fermenting. Also, fermentation can still be occurring when bubbles are not visible, so use a hydrometer to measure alcohol content and fermentation will be complete when the reading stops dropping for ~1 week