Making the Black Mead of Medieval France - Bochet 

If you’re not up for making your own mead, here are a couple of my favorites. They aren’t bochet, but they’re delicious: bit.ly/maxdanskmeads

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)

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).

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.

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.

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".

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!

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

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!

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!

As a Welsh-speaker (very much alive, I speak, live and work through Welsh everyday) I am very impressed with your pronunciation. The Welsh word for mead (I made my own after your own video) is "medd" and the word for being drunk is still related: "meddwi" - to be "meaded"! The word for medicine is also related: "meddyginiaeth" - probably related to some of the more medicinal recipes. Diolch! Thank you!

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

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

I made that same Bochet recipe in 2007. I still have one bottle left and it is incredibly smooth, complex, and delicious! I backsweeten my meads with Honey after primary fermentation so mine is on the sweet side. I also cooked it in a copper cauldron outside and used ale barm to ferment it. I make 5 gallons of mead at a time, but I don't drink much. I've been making mead for 25 years now!

Now, pair that with a kettle of "pottage" (oats, peas, beans, barley) from 1418 and you'll have a meal fit for an English army. I've had modern Mead. It was excellent. I love this channel. Can't wait to see the new kitchen.

Thanks for bringing Polish mead traditions up! In fact, we still use the same naming conventions, based on the proportions of honey vs. water in the mead. The more honey, the more sugar of course, and the longer the maturing process. The highest prized one is the "półtorak" (one and a half), which uses 1 part of honey for each half part of water (by volume).

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

Wife got me your book for fathersday! Keep the good time going, and thanks.

The Olga of Kiev story is so, so much better. Partly it was Igor's fault. The Drevlians were a client tribe and former allies of the Kievan Rus who had broken off and started paying protection to a local warlord years prior. Igor went out with his army to 'persuade' them to return to the fold and seeing his large force they did, paying him tribute. However on his way back, Igor decides the amount was insufficient and goes back - but critically he takes only a small escort with him. Incensed, the Devlians murder Igor, reportedly by tying him to a tree and tearing him with two (presumably with horses), though historians think this might be made up. Whatever the case, Olga took over rulership as their son was only 3. The Devlians, feeling their oats, sent 20 diplomats to Olga taking credit for the killing and conveying their intention that she should marry their ruler (and her husbands killer), Prince Mal. Now back then most dynastic marriages were just political things and they figured Olga was probably in far too vulnerable a position to say no. Unfortunately, they were unaware that Olga was, as modern doctors have diagnosed, metal as F**K. Olga plays along and pretends to be good with the idea, and tells the messengers to return on the morrow where she will honor them in front of her people and have them carried aloft in a boat like a palanquin. The diplomats do so, and on the next day repeat the message they were told to give and the people of Kiev did indeed rise up and carry the men aloft in a boat... to a big old trench they had dug, where they dropped them. The mob then buried the men alive while Olga watched, taunting them and asking if the honour was to their taste. Then Olga sends messengers to the Drevlians and tells them they should send their nobles to her in Kiev, so they can escourt her to meet Prince Mal. Not knowing she had *just* murdered their diplomats and thinking their mission was a success, the Drevlians agree and sent a party of nobles called 'the best men who governed Dereva'. When they arrive, they are greeted with honor and given leave to enter a bathhouse to clean themselves before meeting the Queen. Once the men are all inside the bathhouse, Olga has all of the doors barred and burns it down with the men inside. THEN Olga sends another message, and this is when the funeral feast massacre mentioned in the video occurs. Olga wept and held a feast, the Drevlians joined, and when they were sufficiently drunk Olga's own men were signalled and they massacred the Drevlian's in attendance, it is recorded 5,000 were slaughtered here with Olga going around egging her men on exhorting them to kill every last one of them. At this point even the Drevlians are onto things and Olga gathers her husbands army and marches out, and the Kievan Rus won very well in the field, driving the Drevlians back into their cities. Olga marched her army to the city where her husband had been murdered, Iskorosten (Korosten), and laid siege to it. This siege lasted a year without a break and the Drevlians began to starve, so Olga sent word to them that if they surrendered and paid tribute, they would be given clemency. The Drevlians at this point (to their credit) are a bit wary of trusting Olga and report as much. Olga replies that she will not seek vengeance and consider the debt repaid, so long as they "Give me three pigeons ... and three sparrows from each house." The Drevlians complied and send Olga the birds. Olga in turn has her men tie small pieces of cloth wrapped sulfur to each bird, and releases them. The birds all return to their nests throughout the city, and Olga proceeds to have the place set fire to. With the extra kindling spread around to every house, the entire city turns into a blaze. As people begin fleeing the burning city, Olga has her soldiers capture (for enslaving) or kill those who try to get out. She then left the remnant of the Drevlians to pay tribute. Olga of Kiev incidentally is one of the few people who is a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churchs. This relates to her tremendous efforts to Christianize the Rus later on and involves a story where the Emperor of Constantinople himself tries to make her his wife (probably untrue but funny).

Your comment about not sealing the jar completely reminded me of the fashion of making home-make root beer in the early 20th century. According to my mother, it was not uncommon for people to have their bottles explode if they weren't careful.

I'm into home brewing beer. My kitchen ceiling had a stain for a number of years-when I first was trying to ferment an imperial stout, I didn't have adequate enough blow off. In the dead of night I woke up to a bang. Went down stairs, and saw my fermentation bucket lid on the floor (the bucket was on my counter) and foam had gotten all the way up to my vaulted ceiling. An interesting medieval ale I tried brewing was a rose pedal ale from the Belgium region. There are some Belgian monasteries that keep their fermentors completely open-letting wild yeast begin fermentation and bacteria to sour it over time (forming a gross looking pellicle on top).

Black Mead sounds like a great metal band name.

“Olga was mad and that makes sense.” - best sentence i didnt know i needed, thank you.

The Polish history was very interesting, I've made a Polish honey liquer called Krupnik, which is made by cooking honey with various spices and zest, straining and cooling and adding vodka. The recipe claims its 400 years old.

I've been really hyper-fixated on historical documentaries while I fall asleep and these videos have become some of my favorite over the past few days. I love falling asleep and briefly waking up to learn about the history of yeast in the medieval times and then falling back asleep.

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"

I’ve got 4 gallons of mead in the closet aging right now. Regular, Apricot, Cherry, Blackberry. That 2020 video is what kicked it off for me too. Great episode!

it's so refreshing to have an American RU-vidr make an actual effort to pronounce the Polish names corectly ❤

I started mead-making last year, and it's been a joy of a hobby!! Something that takes a not unreasonable level of effort upfront and then you mostly let it sit. Make sure anyone who wants to try it to look up proper guides, especially about sanitization!

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.

I make Bochet a few times a year. Aged on a charred oak spiral with a vanilla bean, I call it "Bobby Bochet" (because compared to it, water sucks!) Everyone that tries it loves it.

There were Orthodox monks in my neighborhood. They kept bees and made mead. They made wine and beer too. In fact they were pretty much drunks lol. Their mead was so strong it burned going down your throat. I suspect it was distilled. They lost it all in the Woodstock on tornado of ‘79.

Max, in the 90s and 2000s I did a TON of homebrewing (one year we hit the legal limit: 240 gallons for two households). Won some awards too. The point: it'd be a superb idea to mix half a cup of honey, enough hot water to make a cup of honey syrup at 104⁰F, put it in a Quart jar, and let your yeast ferment in that for a day before pitching. Mead is particularly susceptible to having wild yeast get into it, so it's a good idea to have a starter.

Glad to see that Polish (and overall Slavic) mead got more justice this time, it is often associated only with Scandinavians. One clarification to the "Upper class" in Kingdom of Poland and later in Commonwealth, depending on the period one could be quite wealthy without being nobleman (f.e. wealthy merchant) and even the nobility later on became divided into 3 subclasses and the lowest of them rarely had more fortune to them than just their name and maybe family sabre (those were also often servants to the upper subclass of nobility).

Little Trick to avoid splatter pain: Pour the water through a mesh splatter screen. Just put the screen over the pot and pour through it. You can also use cloth if you don't have a metal-mesh thing for whatever reason, but you may lose some water to the cloth depending on how it is made.

I am from Serbia. There is still a custom that people do here where we eat and drink at the grave of our deceased. Sometimes when we drink, we also toast to the dead and spill a bit of what we're drinking on the floor (so that the dead can drink it as well).

My recipe for a caramel apple mead. Bocher 2lbs of raw honey on medium-low heat until a nice darker caramel color. Usually about 30 minutes stirring often. 1 packet of Red Star Premier Rouge yeast. 1 teaspoon of Fermaid-O yeast nutrient. 1 teaspoon of pectic enzyme. 1 Gallon of apple juice 1 cinnamon stick. Add the bochered honey, pectic enzyme, cinnamon stick and a half gallon of apple juice to a 1 gallon carboy. Start the Fermaid-O, Yeast, and 1 cup of apple juice together to wake the yeast up for about 10-15 minutes. Add the started yeast and then top off with the remaining apple juice. Allow it to ferment with an airlock until the yeast has fallen into a solid patty of lees. This usually takes 3-4 weeks. Rack into bottles and store in a cool dark place. Enjoy at your leisure.

I have two separate scars from on-fire marshmallow incidents. I can confirm that burning sugar is one of the worst things to have making contact with human skin. It's like napalm, it sticks!

"I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with Juniper Berries mixed in." -Ralof

In Finland there is a tradition for many families to make (Sima, a kind of mead) during Vappu (May day) every spring.

Two suggestions for the water-adding step: 1) Wear eye protection -- not just glasses, but splash safety goggles. 2) Hold a wire mesh splatter protector over the pot, and reach behind it to stir.

I'd love to see you make a Polish mead! Highly recommend Półtorak, or "one and an half style" mead, which is made with one part honey and half part water. Also known as King's mead, for its rich texture and sweet flavour.

My favorite meadery Two Warriors Meadery (one run and owned by Veterans and helps veteran causes) has a mead called Bobby’s Bochet which is a black mead like this that they worked to have a toasted marshmallow, almost s’mores note to it. They also ship to several states, so if you’re interested, Max, I’d check out their website.

The story of Princess Olga is generally my favorite. After the death of her husband, the Drevlyans had the audacity to send ambassadors to her to woo the widow with their prince. Olga buried the first ambassadors along with the boat. Then in her letter she complained that the ambassadors were not noble enough to woo her, and they sent new ones. She greeted the new ones well, ordered the bathhouse to be lit, and when they were there, she ordered the doors and windows to be boarded up and burned them. But in the end, she went to a meeting with the Drevlyans, where she was given the feast described in the video and her guards slaughtered everyone. But the most interesting thing happened when the city of the Drevlyans went on the defensive. As an act of peace, she asked the Drevlyans for a number of pigeons and sparrows to feed her army. After she received the birds, a bag of sulfur was tied to each animal's paw. The birds flew to their nests, which were located in the city, and the wooden city burned to the ground. Never anger a woman who has at least some kind of power in her hands. She will find a way to take advantage of her and cause you as much harm as possible.

I just noticed something quite fun! In the background of this video is a whiskey from Hven, the bottle that looks like a beaker with a blue and copper label on it. That comes from the island of Hven or more modernly known as Ven and that is where I grew up! That's where my grandparents live all year round! I'm so glad I saw that!

I've been brewing mead for about 10 years and a spiced bochet that's not too sweet is my favorite. As you were making this recipe I was nodding along, thinking 'that's probably going to be pretty dang good!' I like to do a 5 to 1 ratio, I definitly boil it a little less longer, but you do want some of those burned notes. You can dial in the amout by taking a drop of the honey as its frothing and let it cool on a plate. They turn into a honey candy. it will be sweeter than the ultimate mead, but it will give you an idea of how much spice is coming through, as well as how much carimlized flavor. Also, I know it's a long time to wait, but I highly recomend aging a mead for two years. That's when they're at their prime.

1:04 .. what is she doing? 🤔

Little tip. Instead of using water in your airlock, use vodka. It will prevent weird growth from happening within the airlock that could get into your brew. I personally use Everclear because I always have some on hand for making limoncello :)

I made mead several years ago. 15 lbs of honey in 5 gallons of water. Then after the first fermentation I added in about 3 quarts of muscadine grape juice from my vines. After about 3 months of fermenting it was done. It was a translucent hot pink color because of the grape juice. I have never tasted a better alcoholic beverage in my life. It was dangerously good. And mead hangovers are the worst

14:47 I think the restriction on consuming the extra-fancy buried mead might have been intended to enforce the difference between the heriditary nobility and the noveau riche class, new money, the rising merchant class. Both had wealth, but the nobility looked down on the merchants.

Wood chips actually have a lot of surface area for the infusion into the mead, so if you want less wood flavor you should try using oak cubes or even spirals. There’s also smaller form barrels you can get, but I’ve heard you generally don’t want to go lower than 5 gallons for barrel aging. You also want to boil the wood chips, cubes, or spiral to extract a little of the strong wood flavor first, especially if you’re adding them during primary fermentation rather than while aging the mead.

You can get one and half mead(one part honey, half part water) in almost all alcohol stores here in Poland. It is aged 8 years and expensive compared to other meads but not as expensive as one would think.

I make a semi-dry mead here in the Midwest with wild mulberry and wildflower honey. It ends up being very much like a champagne or brut when I’m finished because when I bottle it I back sweeten it enough to give the yeast more food while it slow ferments in the fridge. Also: racking and aging is vital for high quality stuff. Mead tastes like acetone when it’s fresh and almost requires aging so it mellows out.

When pouring the water into the honey, use a splatter screen pot cover. You can pour the water over top of it without having to remove it. It should help. It's handy for recipes that need to sit and boil for awhile but still need cover to prevent any messes.

That recipe is really well written considering it is medieval. "Exact" quantities, description of the production itself etc.

St. Olga rocks my spiritual world! Patron saint of defiance and vengeance... gotta LOVE that.

Very interesting! I am Russian and this is the first time I have heard Olga's stories told in English, You def did your reasearch! I love your videos, I once made mead and I always wanted to do it again, I guess this is my calling

Racking consists of using a siphon tube just over the lees, the settled debris on the bottom. Only allowing the clear liquid to go through it excluding the spent yeasts and left over unfermented fruit, and trub, as it 's termed in beer making. Honey will almost totally convert to alcohol where other sugars will not.

I applaud your restraint to not make a joke about bringing sextier back.

Little correction: Grains of Paradise being "type of pepper" is a misnomer (but we call Piper and Capsicum both "peppers" so whatever...). It is Aframom (Aframomum melegueta) and some other species are consumed also. It is also Zingiberales family (Ginger related plants) as the Cardamoms are.

A trick is to heat the water and let the honey cool just a small bit.... keeps the danger to a bit less!

I made two braggots for a university project based on the recipes in Susan Verberg’s “Of Hony- A collection of Mediaeval brewing recipes” and research done by Bettina Arnold and her group at the University of Wisconsin based on remnants found in a cauldron at an archaeological site in Swabia, Germany. It was very interesting, especially since it used meadowsweet instead of hops for the bittering/preservative agent. It was very light and refreshing

I've been obsessed with mead the last few days and I love this channel. This video appearing now is a combo of happiness

Amazing timing on this, I picked up my first bottle of bochet from a local meadery last week. I'm surprised it's not a more common variation, at least in the meaderies in my area, because it's absolutely delicious.

That vespiquen is amazing max! Love your collection! Very fitting! 🐝🐝🐝🍯🍯😊😊😊😊

Ohhh, nice, this is the freshest Max I've had so far. I never catch these videos until they're a week old, lol. Hot Max, right out of the oven!

One of your best videos yet! You're such a good entertainer, hilarious and this historical account was awesome and also hilarious. The part where you said "Don't mess with Olga" and it flashed to a picture of her face all mad was so funny that I laughed out loud and watched it twice!

"...back in 2020, shortly after I began" that's roughly when I first saw your channel and subbed. I'm actually surprised that's around when you started: the videos then had the quality and effort that rivaled well established channels!

If you do like my grandfather take one peice of oak char on one side then put in jar. He did that for his moon shine to get the golden color and flavour...same thing

I was just watching old episodes! How did you know? Love the channel, it's really made me enjoy cooking more.

Recently came upon this channel, I normally follow a lot of history channels and yours has a really neat twist on history.

Made my first Bochet 7 months ago and let an oak spiral sit in it for a week or so. Favorite mead I’ve made yet

Being an archaeologist I love this very entertaining channel.

As someone who just got into mead making this is fantastic

Well, Max, if you ever decide to do a 'Mead: Part 3', might I recommend Capsicumel? It's exactly what it sounds like- mead with hot peppers in it.

21:06 Best cookbook quote ever.

Little tip, use the handle of spoon and mark the water line with a pencil so you always have a line. Also use boiling water to pour into the honey. The closer the water is to the temp of honey it won't splatter as bad

you could also use a product called "spiral staves" in place of the chips. these are purpose-made and used in whiskey finishing

Ohhhh, another mead recipe to try! This is exciting!

If I can humbly give some advice for a future mead, I would recommend the following. 1. Use oak cubes instead of the chips that are made for this process. The cubes, in my opinion, are closer to barrel aging flavor. I would recommend Hungarian Oak Cubes with a medium toast for this recipe. 2. Add the oak and the spices after fermentation at your first racking. Some spices can impede fermentation somewhat. Also, since some alcohol has been created, the extraction of flavors from the wood and spice will be stronger. I would recommend tasting the mead during aging (small sample) every week the first month or two. When you get as much spices and oak flavors you want, remove these from the mead. The flavors will mellow over time so the finished mead should have slightly less flavor than when you pull the spices and/or wood cubes. It is possible to over oak but with time mead is very forgiving. This is just my advice as a home hobbyist for little over 10 years. Thank you so much for your wonderful program and concept of your channel.

I'm actually in the process of founding a Meadery right now in the US. On my way tomorrow to travel 3 months through Scandinavia and Central Europe to finish research and recipe development up. Really cool to see people in the comments interested in it

Bochet is just Medieval France’s Benadryl Cough Syrup.

I make my own mead, and I also make "black mead", but that's by mixing blackcurrant with the honey and water. It doesn't turn black exactly, but a very pretty dark red (the latest batch is still fermenting, but already crystal clear). Compared to pure mead, it has more texture and also a more or less prominent blackcurrant aroma. You can (but don't have to) add spices. At least here in Germany, that's (nowadays) called Black Mead. If you use redcurrant, it's (very creatively) called red mead, but I haven't tried that yet. Personally, I usually use Port or Bordeaux yeast, because both ferment to a much higher ABV than Ale yeast (basically, different yeasts have different tolerance for alcohol: Once that tolerance level has been reached, they become inactive or even die. The yeast I use has higher tolerance, so I get mead with 10-15% ABV. That means it's mostly stable and able to mature). For my most recent batch of blackcurrant mead, I've re-used the same yeast I had used for the previous batch, because there was a bit of wild yeast present that is very desirable. The higher ABV also means that my mead is (usually) not sweet at all, but rather like a dry wine, with lots of honey-flavor but little remaining sweetness. Maybe I'll try Bochet one day, too.

Fantastic video as always. I started my homebrewing hobby with a mead. Honey, lemon juice, cloves, and basil. I aged it for 3 months, and saved a bottle for my wedding. At that point it was 9 years old and was incredible.

To ferment cider (when he was in college) my dad used a latex balloon to cover the narrow necked jug that allowed the gasses to escape while keeping particles out. Hilarious advice coming from a man who rarely drank, but brought up a jug of my favorite apple cider as a treat when I was in college.😊

If you're ever in GA in or near the Atlanta area I highly recommend Viking Alchemist Meadery. They have a lot of flavored meads that you may find interesting, and they do tasting flights. People may also recommend the Monk's Meadery whose flagship mead is good but their normal varieties are so-so.

Love ur channel bro, you have one of the most original RU-vid channels, congratulations!! 🎉🎉

Practical suggestion to anyone getting into brewing: don’t use water in your airlock. Use some of the cleaning solution that you are supposed to wash everything (like your brewing container and spoons and any measuring cups and bottles etc) in before use. Reason: Bugs can survive water and still get in. So can some bacteria. The cleaning solution on the other hand is designed to kill them. And airlocks are a one way valve for liquid and gases so you don’t need to worry about the cleaning solution getting in your brew.

Yay! More mead stuff please. This year I made a no water wild blueberry mead with blueberry blossom honey, Spiced Chai with wild honey, low water added vanilla tropical fruit with orange blossom honey(tastes like a tropical creamsicle) and a vanilla cold brew coffee brochette with clover honey(all at about 16% abv. They all turned out amazing, now to wait a year to age them a bit. Max i'd love to see you do a cross over with one of the Meadtube folks. Cheers!

Mead is fun to make. I usually made in five gallon batches when I had honey available. Ended up around 14 percent, used cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, citrus zest and juice, lovely floral honey scent when dries around lip of glass, about a 2.5 on sweetness/dryness scale so will sweeten to taste if required at serving. Usually took about three months, sometimes four to fully settle and clarify with flocking agent at right time, then decarbonization, stabilization, rack and filter...... beautiful pale dandelion/merigold kinda colour, difficult to get to the filtering/bottling stage sometimes, so when making one, make another 5 gallon batch to steal from as you wait for the really good 5, 10 15 20 however many gallons you make in stages to bottle, hehe.

I love the little Vespiqueen plush in the background. Very fitting for this video.

Mead sounds delicious! I had a ginger ale making binge last year and loved watching it ferment over time. You do fill the bottles up to the 3/4 mark but you have to open the tops every day to let the gas out. Unfortunately I'm on a more restricted diet now so I can only have a small amount of natural sugar. I might give mead a try though, as I know I only drink 1-4 times per year. Can't wait to see the new kitchen!

you can cover the pot with dense mesh used to cover pans (for same reason) you can sometimes find in kitchen supplies and pour water through that (or really large fine strainer) for more safety :)

My husband and a friend made a raspberry champagne mead. The bubbles pushed the raspberries up into the valve. I arrived home from church to the mess from the Raspberry Bomb! My husband and his friend scrubbed my kitchen/dining room popcorn ceiling with toothbrushes. LoL

I am french and I didn't even knew that was a thing

if you ever come up to Montreal. we have a Hydromellerie (meadery) called intermiel. They have a mead called Medieval. it's made with buckwheat honey. dark and rich. they also have a line of meads that are lighter and go well with dinner.

A little tip for pronouncing french - the french R, like the ancient Greek R (despite their differences in other regards) - alternates between voiced and voiceless depending on the surrounding sounds. In "Paris", since the R is sandwiched between vowels, It's necessarily voiced. You pronounced it voiceless, which is much harder to do and results in a grinding rhythm of speech

I've really been enjoying these mead videos, it's interesting to learn about the history of mead and how different cultures treated it. Hats off to you Max The Mead Maker 🫵

You know what goes good with mead? Hard tack “clack clack” 😂😂

Can absolutely second the recommendation on long pepper. It's amazing.