Anticipated Challenges: Mead Edition

While we claim to be making Viking mead, we anticipate many challenges, limiting our ability to achieve an authentic version. This is due to limitations pertaining to time frame and cost, as well as lack of access to traditional materials and resources.

1. As will be discussed in more detail along with information regarding our honeycomb experiment, traditionally acquiring honey would have involved maintaining a hive and processing honeycomb (Your Shout, Mate 2012), or being an elite and receiving it as a form of currency, as previously mentioned in another post (Ward 2013). We chose to purchase packaged honey from the store, as the cost of purchasing enough honeycomb to make a batch of mead exceeded our budget—the small piece that we purchased for the experiment (approximately 4.3" x  2.5" x 1.5") was $7 dollars! This may impact our experiment as the traditional recipe uses a ratio of drained honeycomb to spring water which may lead to a weaker mead mixture (Your Shout, Mate 2012) and less naturally present yeast; however, our decision to test the use of raisins to gauge fermentation as a separate experiment as well as pasteurized honey again minimized the presence of additional yeasts (Your Shout, Mate 2012). That being said, as we added store-bought champagne yeast specifically for making alcohol, this likely accounted for that issue as well as created another due to the large amount of an effective yeast, as explained below (4).
2.  Since the Vikings would not have had access to a food-grade plastic bucket or a stove, they would have used a container made out of materials such as soapstone or wood, and the mixture would have been warmed over a fire or using hot rocks (Your Shout, Mate 2012). Though we added champagne yeast as discussed above, the use of a wooden bucket would have allowed for the transfer of yeast from batch to batch. As we sanitized all materials before use and had not made mead before, we were unable to achieve this. Additionally, stones from the fire-pit used to heat the mead mixture, would have added ash and therefore potassium (Your Shout, Mate), which is missing from our batch and used by present-day alcohol makers to regulate fermentation.
3. While we're making a short mead that ferments quickly due to the large amount of champagne yeast relative to the mead mixture, the Vikings likely allowed their mead to ferment for longer (Your Shout, Mate 2012). For this reason, the alcoholic content and taste of the mead may be different.
4. Hopefully covered in a future blog post, the often cold temperature of the apartment in which the mead is being kept may not be conducive to fermentation. As mentioned in the post entitled "Background Information on Viking Mead," since it was made in the home, learning more about the structure and layout of Viking houses may help us to speculate whether a warmer temperature was maintained. 

- Jo

*This blog post is based on information from our project's proposal, which was also written by B and J.*

Bibliography

Unknown, 01/01/2012, A True Viking-Style Mead (Mjöð), Your Shout, Mate. Available: http://yourshoutmate.blogspot.ca/2012/01/truevikingsytlemeadmjo.html [Oct 9, 2013].

WARD, C., 10/09/2013 last update, Alcoholic Beverages and Drinking Customs of the Viking
Age, The Viking Answer Lady. Available: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/drink.shtml [Oct 9,
2013].