Brewing - Ice Mead Results, Round 1! I Do A Science!

A couple weeks ago, I posted about the first batch of '21 for brewing.  There isn't a lot to give in terms of update there, except that I ran my bochet past my parents, who aren't mead drinkers, and they liked it.  I pulled a 750mL bottle of the bochet two days ago and put it in the outdoor freezer to see what would happen.  More on that in a moment.

Background

Before I go any further, I am going to preface this by saying that there are some non-technical general terms I'm going to use that require definitions for my purposes.  "Beer-strength" indicates an alcoholic beverage between 4% and 10% alcohol by volume (ABV).  "Wine-strength" is 10-20% ABV.  "Spirit" is 20% ABV or stronger.  This differs from convention in that I am not separating spirits and liqueurs.

Freezing distillation is a historically documentable method for increasing effective alcohol concentration; while distillation as a means of improving alcohol content is traceable to the middle 14th Century, it is completely impractical in a Norse setting, which is what matters to me.  The short version is that alcohols, specifically ethanol, have a much lower freezing point than water, and so it is possible to boost alcohol content by reducing the percentage of liquid that is water by reducing the amount of liquid water.  What this has to do with Norse history is that we have plenty of literary evidence that mead was regarded as especially potent in a Scandinavian setting, despite the fact that you have to do some fancy tricks to boost a mead into the spirit range.  Most of that is down to the fact that mead gets to wine strength quickly and easily and was for luxury consumption, while day to day consumption even in high-status households is primarily water, small (less than 4% ABV) beverages, or beer-strength beverages such as ales or ciders.

However, it led me to a question: What plausible means existed for boosting meads into the "divine frenzy" level that we get from historical descriptions of mead? The entire Norse range is prone to sub-freezing temperatures at least part of the year, including areas like Normandy and Ireland where long, hard winters were not the norm.  The areas described in Egil's Saga, which includes some of the most impressive feats of drinking that don't wander into the supernatural, are all north of Normandy, and the most impressive of those drinking feats, which involves feigning drunkenness and vomiting in his host's mouth to avoid a fight, takes place in the middle of winter, at a remote estate (note that the above gives the Victorianism "spat in his face," which would have provoked a duel, and the Penguin edition of Egla gives the full story, but I obviously can't link it here).  I freely admit that even the more salacious translations describe what they drink as ale, but they were still drawing from casks in the dead of winter and I don't brew beer because I don't like beer, so I conducted this first experiment with mead.

Procedure

Brewing took place as described elsewhere, and the bottle went in the 20-degree freezer for 36 hours.  This period was strictly arbitrary; I checked it at 36 hours expecting slush and found a solid mass.

Results

After 36 hours in the outdoor freezer, what I had was an amber-colored ice cube.  I pulled approximately a tablespoon off from the bottle.  No more was available.  My wife and I tasted the result, which was less than a shot-glass.  Strictly qualitative evaluation says that it has a thick, syrupy consistency and alcohol content higher than that of low-end spirits (it was definitely harder than MD2020, in other words).  Color, flavor, and texture were pleasant and definitely more concentrated than original material.  Volumes were so small that volumetric and specific-gravity testing were impossible.

Interpretation

Volume Distilled

This was substantially less than expected.  I have several possible explanations, that the ice matrix trapped any liquid volumes far down in the bottle and reduced porosity to the point that it could not reasonably pour.  This is akin to why an aquifer can be trapped in a limestone layer under pressure until an exit vector develops: the limestone isn't sufficiently porous to let it out.

Alcohol Content and Flavor

I cannot comment on the actual content of the sample, because what I got was so small, but the results were spectacularly alcoholic based merely on taste and texture.  Mouthfeel says it was in the 30% range, but that may be optimism and confirmation bias.  The caramelized honey flavor came through strongly.  Texture was thick, syrupy, and viscous, on the border of violating Newtonian fluid laws without being fully into solidus territory.

Further Research

I have recharged the bottle with more bochet, thawed it, and am going to continue the experiment using a different container, so that I can free up more liquids for pour-off, and try pour-off at more planned intervals - probably 12 hours, 24 hours, and 36 hours.  I am not a chemist, and have not attempted the math from a 15-18% wine, but I would expect a 750mL bottle to produce, conservatively, between 375mL and 500mL of distillate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gaming - Savaging Star Wars, Part IV - Edges, Hindrances, and the Problem of Generic vs. Specific in Gaming

Image
Ever since the mid-90s or so, the trend in gaming has been to include systems about what sets your character apart - whether that was AD&D2 kits, or D&D3+ Feats, or Advantages/Disadvantages in GURPS and Merits/Flaws in Storyteller games, it was a fairly sharp deviation from the early D&D way of handling those either as one-offs with GM-arbitrated mechanical effects, or as nonexistent.  WEG's d6 Star Wars didn't really get into this - with a couple of notable, species-based exceptions like Noghri martial arts - but probably would have with a couple more years' development, as the use of Feats by the same writing team working for WOTC on d20 Star Wars demonstrates. Savage Worlds uses the terms Edge and Hindrance for these; I discussed these very briefly in the Chiss conversion.  To be honest, the Savage Worlds philosophy of "just adjust one that already exists to fit circumstances" works really well, so that very little additional material needs to be w...
Read more

SCA Combat Curriculum Development - Skill Focus - Conditioning

Image
Therefore there is no doubt at all but that a man's strength may be increased by reasonable exercise, And so likewise by too much rest it may be diminished: the which if it were not manifest, yet it might be proved by infinite examples. You shall see Gentlemen, Knights and others, to be most strong and nimble in running or leaping, or in vaulting, or in turning on Horseback, and yet are not able by a great deal to bear so great a burden as a Country man or Porter: But in contrary in running and leaping, the Porter and Country man are most slow and heavy, neither know how to vault upon their horse without a ladder. And this proceeds of no other cause, than for that every man is not exercised in that which is most esteemed: So that if in the managing of these weapons, a man would get strength, it shall be convenient for him to exercise himself in such sort as shall be declared. - Giacomo di Grassi Conditioning is, in this context, the required cultivatable physical attri...
Read more

Book Review: Hungarian Hussar Sabre and Fokos Fencing, Russ Mitchell (Illustrated by Kat Laurange)

Image
  Several weeks ago, I had the good fortune to attend an all-day class taught by Russ Mitchell and Kat Laurange on Hungarian sabre, which is well outside my usual sword wheelhouse; I tend to focus on two-handed cutting weapons primarily intended for foot combat, whether it's longsword, katana, or Dane-axe.  I consider it fully appropriate to say that class changed how I approach training and teaching.  I picked up the first in the Austro-Hungarian military saber (I'm American, consarn it, and I'll spell saber like George Patton intended it!) series that day, read it within the week, and have been debating how to review it properly since. The reason for the delay is because I needed to separate the experience from the book, and also because there are at least three things that need to be reviewed when reviewing a historic martial arts manual.  The first is the manual as a book; the second is the martial system described as a martial system; the third is the historicit...
Read more