http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns:css="http://macVmlSchemaUri" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
Boilng-Seethg-art - 5/29/17
"Of Boiling and Seething - A re-evaluation of the
common cooking terms in connection with brewing" by Unnr in elska á
Fjárfella.
NOTE: See also the files: Hist-of-Mead-art, Making-Mead-art,
brewing-msg, mead-msg, Of-Honey-Wine-art, p-bottles-msg, Sweet-Terms-art,
yeasts-msg, honey-msg.
************************************************************************
NOTICE -
This article was added to this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium, with the permission of the author.
These files are available on the Internet at:
http://www.florilegium.org
Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the
author or translator.
While the author will likely give permission for this work
to be reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first or
check for any permissions granted at the end of this file.
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous
stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************
You can find more work by this author on her blog at:
http://bookeofsecretes.blogspot.com
Of Boiling and Seething -
A re-evaluation
of the common cooking terms in connection with brewing.
by Unnr in
elska á Fjárfella
Of the
Dominion of Myrkfaelinn in the Kingdom of Aethelmearc.
Recreating medieval brews in our modern times is a fun and tasty way to
connect to our historic past. Unfortunately, having a deeper understanding
about the chemistry involved in fermentation does not necessarily translate
into an easier interpretation of medieval recipes. Our modern brewing methods
and sanitary measures evolved, and the language and terminology used in brewing
changed over the years as well. The arcane language of early medieval recipes
often makes modern interpretations approximations at best, and modern brewers
with their own interpretation of the same recipe make variations, which
sometimes differ slightly and sometimes quite a lot. For instance, in my own
work to recreate two mead recipes, no 9 and 10 in V: Goud Kokery which is
part of the 14th century manuscript Curye on Inglysch, I initially used the editors suggestions on how
to interpret recipe 10 To make fyn meade
& poynaunt. After half a dozen or so of mediocre variations, and a
deepening puzzlement on the sequence of steps in the recipe, I realized the
editors' interpretation has practical issues. Expecting something off with the
technique, instead of tweaking the recipe to make it fit our modern
conceptions, I delved deeper into the practices used during our time of study
to track down where it went off track.
The first step was to look into the source of the fermentable sugars in
mead – the honey – which at the same time located the source for
fermenting yeast. Medieval honey would have been available in different states
and different grades. The highest grade honey was life honey, which is the
honey that drips out first without any assistance and is highly regarded both
in brewing and in medicine. Life honey is honey which is completely untreated,
and held in such high esteem that in medieval Dutch cooking and brewing recipes
it had its own term 'zeem'. The
translation for 'zeem' is given as 'ongepijnde honing', unhurt or
unprocessed honey and also as 'maagden
honing', or virgin honey. Unfortunately, true to medieval practice, the
word is used interchangeably for life honey and high quality processed honey,
and it is up to the reader to interpret which ingredient is meant. (openlaszlo)
What makes life honey so special, and literally alive, is that even though
honey is antibacterial, it is a welcome host for osmophillic yeast strains like
Saccharomyces rouxii, Sacharomyces var. osmophilus and Sacharomyces
bisporus var. mellis. (Rasmussen,
21)
Osmophillic yeast is able to thrive in highly concentrated sugar
solutions, and is best for the fermentation of honey solutions with sugar
concentrations above 15%, but generally does not produce alcohol as well as the
common beer and wine yeasts. If sugar concentrations are below 15%, the wine
and beer yeast varieties of Sacharomyces
cerevisiae are the best choice for optimally fermenting honey. (Rasmussen,
21) When processing life honey temperatures exceeding 154 degrees Fahrenheit / 68 degrees
Celsius (Hagen, 148) will
kill ambient yeast and heating honey to facilitate flow often does not produce
life honey. Also, like the term 'zeem',
the term 'life honey' is sometimes
used for true honey that is alive and will start fermentation, and sometimes
for honey of the best quality. If the life honey asked for in a recipe is to be
truly boiled, then it does not need to be alive honey and you should not
sacrifice your labour intensive honey-yeast starter to literally emulate the
medieval recipe. One thing to keep in mind when fermenting with osmophillic
yeast: as the starting sugar concentration or density is high it will have a
slow start, especially compared to pitching modern concentrated yeast.
Processed honey is
graded depending on how it is removed from the comb: with unprocessed life
honey being first grade, second grade would be what would easily be leaked out
and strained when breaking up or crushing the comb cell structure (equivalent
to our centrifugal extracted honey), third grade would be washing the leaked
combs in heated water whereby the leftover and crystallized honey dissolves but
the wax is not melted, and then a waste grade would be to squeeze the washed
combs with a twisted bag press to get the last little bits of liquid out (often
used for servant grade). This is not recommended by the reverend Charles
Butler, who warns in his 1609 beekeeping treatise Feminine Monarchie: "&
some (which is worse) doe violently presse it out. But by these means they shal
have no fine & pure raw hony, howsoever afterward they handle it."
Leaking can be facilitated with heat, and as long as the radiant
temperature is kept below 154 degrees F the ambient yeast would survive. Leaked
honey would be used in recipes calling for volumes or weights. Honey from
different bio-regions or different seasons (a wet spring, a dry fall, etc) can
have different sugar concentrations, and when using volumes or weights, can
lead to slight differences in sugar concentration, as the Digby recipe Mr. Pierce's
Excellent White Metheglin confirms "When it is blood-warm, put the honey to it, about one part, to four of
water; but because this doth not determine the proportions exactly (for some
honey will make it stronger then other) you must do that by bearing up an Egge".
Washing can be facilitated by agitation by hand, which would also keep
the water temperature in check to make sure it is not hot enough to melt wax
(upwards of 144 degrees F or 62
degrees C). Coincidentally, if
honeycomb is warmed enough to dissolve the sugars but not enough the melt the
wax, the ambient yeast is able to survive to start fermentation. As the sugar
concentration of washed honey is unknown – not enough honey will make
weak mead which spoils much quicker, while too much honey can inhibit yeast
growth giving competitors a change – it is advisable to use a hydrometer to
check gravity (the amount of sugar in solution); either with a modern glass
hydrometer, or with the egg float test, which basically does the same thing but
with a renaissance flair.
A honey solution made by
boiling scraped honeycomb. The swirls are from particulated bees wax.
The position of the egg showing
about 20 mm or the size of a medieval groat coin above the surface indicates
enough dissolved sugars for a circa 12% alcohol mead.
The next step is to look into the cooking process: how exactly did the
honey become must. Many medieval recipes will advice to boil the must. Since
the source of medieval water is most often rather conspicuous, up to the point
of deadly, this is not persé a bad thing. For the flavor of the honey it would
be better to boil the water first, and add the honey when it is blood-warm to
then start fermentation. Alcohols' preservative properties combined with the
antibacterial effect of honey makes for a safe product to drink, much saver
than surface water, even without boiling. According to Feminine Monarchie, heating above temperatures, which would hurt
the skin "The best way is to put it
into an oven after the batch is forth, but not before you can abide to hold
your hand upon the bottome, for feare of overheating the hony" is
known to damage the honey. Maybe, even though in cooking recipes the word 'boil'
is most often meant as a roiling boil, in brewing it might mean the process of
cooking? Unless refermentation during warm weather is meant, to confuse the
matter even more! As Hugh Platt in his 1594 Jewell
House of Art and Nature complains "If
any sweete Wines happen to reboile in the hot part of the Summer, as manie
Vinteners to their great losse have oftentimes felt".
The word 'seethe' or 'seething' is even vaguer. Does it mean
simmering, or, being at a boil but not bubbling? Or does it mean the process of
heating, which could be anything from above room temperature to near boiling?
For instance, the recipe To Make Mede
in the 14th CE Curye on
Inglysch cookbook uses both 'boil'
and 'seethe' "& thanne take that forseid combis &
sethe hem in clene water, & boile hem wel" but after all that the
combs should still be intact enough to be pressed out "After presse out thereof as myche as though may". This
indicates the water temperature did not actually exceed 144° F or 62 degrees C
and melt the wax. Thus instead of translating the following quote to "take
the previously mentioned combs & simmer them in clean water, & boil
them well", should it perhaps be "take the previously mentioned combs
& heat them in clean water, & cook them well"? Since the latter
interpretation matches the Feminine
Monarchie's technique "set it in
some vessel over a soft fire, and stil keep your hand in the vessel stirring
about the honie and the wax, and opening the wax piece-meale until the hony and
not the wax shal be molten", and it makes sense, I think this would be
the correct interpretation. And as ambient yeast survives heating up until 154
degrees F or 68 degrees C this would mean the must is still viable for spontaneous
fermentation, without the need for adding barm or lees from a previous batch.
Back to the two
recipes, interpretations of the translation is re-evaluated. The reason I work
with both recipes is that recipe 10 looks back to recipe 9, even more so in the
re-evaluation than I initially had thought.
The two original recipes and the proposed alternate interpretations:
9 To
make mede.
Take hony combis & put hem
into a greet vessel & ley thereynne grete stickis, & ley the weight
theron til it be runne out as myche as it wole; & this is called liif hony.
& thanne take that forseid combis & sethe hem in clene water, &
boile hem wel. After presse out thereof as myche as though may & caste it
into another vessel into hoot water, & sethe it wel & scome it wel,
& do therto a quarte of liif hony. & thanne lete it stone a fewe dayes
wel stoppid, & tis is good drinke.
(Hieatt & Butler, 150)
Literal Translation:
9 To make mead.
Take honey combs,
and put them into a big vessel & lay in there big sticks, & lay the
weight on it until it runs out as much as it would; & this is called life
honey. & then take those mentioned combs & simmer them in clean water,
& boil it well. After press out of it as much as you can & cast it into
another vessel into hot water, & heat it well, & scum it well, & do
thereto a quart of life honey. & then let it stand a few days well closed
up, & this is a good drink.
If the honey combs
are literally simmered and boiled, the wax will melt into the sugar solution.
Interestingly, while the combs are quite bulky in their solid state, once they
are melted within the sugar solution there is not a whole lot left. In one of
my experiments, the combs were boiled in clean water and poured through a
cheesecloth filter while hot, and in another experiment the combs were boiled,
the must was cooled down first, and then poured through a cheesecloth filter.
Filtering the waxy must while hot particulized the hot wax, which then
solidified in tiny particles which. mostly stayed suspended in the must. During
fermentation a thin film of wax particles formed on the surface, which created
quite a nice surface protection. After bottling the wax particles would form a
haze around the neck of the bottle (shake well before pouring) and while
sipping there was a distinct sensation of lipbalm around the lips. Many of
these issues were negated by filtering the wax must after cooling down, though
the sensation of lipbalm never completely went away. For the amount of wax comb
that went into the must and the insignificant amount that was recovered during
filtering, the indication is most stayed in solution with the sugars. Boiling
the wax to dilute the honey does not coincide with the available information
(as in, there should be comb structure left to be pressed) plus, the wax adds a
significant (although not unpleasant) taste to the must.
Boiling the wax comb and honey
to make the must. From the 4 scraped frames of honey comb only about an inch
worth of black gook was recovered. Most of the bright yellow wax disappeared
during the boil.
Current Interpretation:
9 To make mead.
Take honey combs,
and put them into a big vessel & lay in there big sticks, & lay the
weight on it [of the combs] until it runs out as much as it would; & this
is called life honey. & then take those mentioned combs & heat them in
clean water [not hotter than your hands can take], & cook it well. After
press out of it [the combs] as much as you can & cast it [the liquid] into
another vessel into hot water, & heat it well, & scum it well, & do
thereto a quart of life honey. & then let it stand a few days well closed
up, & this is a good drink.
The second recipe:
10 To make fyn meade &
poynaunt.
Take xx galouns of the forseid
pomys soden in iii galouns of fyn wort, & i galoun of liif hony & sethe
hem wel & scome hem wel til thei be cleer enowgh; & put therto iii
penyworth of poudir of peper & i penyworth of poudir of clowis & lete
it boile wel togydere. & whanne it is coold put it into the vessel into the
tunnynge up of the forseid mede; put it therto, & close it wel as it is
aboue said. (Hieatt & Butler, 150)
Literal Translation:
10 To make fine mead
& poignant.
Take 20 gallons of
the previously mentioned pomys cooked in 3 gallons of fine wort, & take 1
gallon of life honey & simmer it well & scum it well until it is clear
enough; & add to it 3 pennyworth powder of pepper & 1 pennyworth powder
of cloves & let it boil well together. & when it is cold put it into
the vessel of the barreled up previously mentioned mead; add it to it, &
close it well as it is said before.
The suggestions by Hieatt & Butler are as follows:
The word 'pomys' translates
as apples (p. 207). [This exact word only shows up once as part of V: Goud Kokery; variants from other
recipes are 'poumes' and 'pommys' which both refer to a softened
apple dish.]
The 'forseyd pomys sodden'
evidently refers to a recipe the scribe has omitted (p. 150)
Fyne meade and poynaunt V 10, spiced mead. Despite the initial
directions, no recipe calling for cooked apples actually occurs in the vicinity
of this one. The quantity of spices called for would work out to something like
2 oz. of pepper and ¼ oz of cloves: this would not make a very spicy drink,
considering the 34 [edit 24] gallons of other ingredients. (p. 188)
The immediate issue
with recipe 10 is the translation of the word 'pomys'. From its similarity to the word 'pommys' it seems self evident it would refer to apples
(linguistically via the French word 'pomme'
for apple). The word 'pomys' in modern times could translate to 'pomace' or
apple pressings, the apple solids left over from the making of cider, or apple
juice. To my best knowledge, the word 'pomace' is never used for the juice,
always for the leftover solids from pressing, so I am inclined to forgo the
option of it meaning juice, or the must from recipe 9.
Another issue is the
meaning of the word 'tunnynge', which
I'd like to address first. The word 'tunnynge'
can be interpreted as either a measurement (a 'tun' or a barrel of 252 or 265
gallons, a defined unit of volume in the 14th century) or an action (tunning).
My first trial used the tun as a measurement and found that it adds too much
volume to the amount of honey & malt for a proper ferment. The recipe
instructs "put it into the vessel
into the tunnynge up of the forseid mede" which at first reads like it
barrels up twice: "put it into the vessel into the tun of the previously
mentioned mead". My current interpretation is "put it into the vessel
into the tunned up previously mentioned mead", or, use a transporting
vessel (see image) to move the wort/must and add it back "put it therto" into the barrel of
the mead made with recipe 9. This would indicate recipe 10 is not a stand alone
recipe, but instead uses the mead made in recipe 9 to make something else,
called fyne meade and poynaunt. This
would basically make a braggot, except instead of adding honey & spices to
ale to re-ferment (as a typical period braggot), it adds wort (malt) and spices
to mead (akin to a modern braggot, or malted mead).
"The Brewer" by Jan Luyken
(1649-1712)
The vessel mentioned in the
recipe could be used to transport from the boiling vat to the fermenting tun or
barrel.
Back to the pomys. Hieatt & Buttler assume "the
'forseyd pomys sodden' evidently
refers to a recipe the scribe has omitted" as "despite the initial
directions, no recipe calling for cooked apples actually occurs in the vicinity
of this one". When the directions in recipe 10 are interpreted as if 'pomys' meant apple, to make a spiced
apple wine sweetened with honey and wort/malt, the ratio of solid apples and
fermentable sugars to liquid does not seem to add up. To properly ferment a
certain amount of apple solids, it would need to be at least submerged, which
combined with the direction to cook it "soden in iii galouns of fyn wort" makes for apple sauce
consistency. If enough water is added to create an acceptable cooked apple wort
the amount of fermentable sugars is too low for a proper ferment, and if the
water ratio is balanced for a proper short mead ferment, the must is so dense
it is difficult to get a good ferment (and have liquid left over at the end,
the apple solids suck it up like a sponge). This recipe had a tendency for the
apple sauce to create a pancake at the surface which then would get pushed up
by fermentation gasses, straight out through the airlock, which necessitated in
stirring the must back down every other hour or so until primary fermentation
slowed down. In other words, the recipe does not make sense, it does not work
well, and the resulting brew would spoil prematurely on a regular base,
indicating a unbalanced recipe. Combined with the interpretation that recipe 10
could be a back ferment of recipe 9, similar to a modern braggot, it puts the
translation of 'pomys' to apple to serious
question.
Before fermentation (L) and
after fermentation (R). One quart of apple solids added to one gallon of water,
with appropriate honey and malt. Cooking made the apple fall apart and most of
the available liquid became absorbed.
What could be meant
instead? If "the forseid pomys
sodden" is to be taken literally as something cooked from the previous
recipe, then let's look back to see what fits. The bulk honey from recipe 9
does not come from leaked honey but from washed out wax comb: "& thanne take that forseid combis &
sethe hem in clene water, & boile hem wel". When the alternate interpretation for 'seething' and 'boiling' is used, the directions to "heat them in clean water,
& cook them well" would generate left over wax combs, which are then "presse out thereof as myche as though may".
If the alternate interpretation is not used, and the must is literally simmered
and cooked, then the wax would have melted and there'd be nothing left to be
pressed, strongly indicating lower temperatures than the melting point of wax.
The wax comb from recipe 9 is both cooked and pressed it would fit the
description of "the forseid pomys
sodden" of recipe 10 perfectly (Magnus).
Current Interpretation:
10 To make fine mead
& poignant.
Take 20 gallons of
the previously mentioned pomys [the squeezed combs of recipe 9] cooked in 3
gallons of fine wort, & take 1 gallon of life honey & heat it well
[below 154 degrees F, and the
ambient yeast will survive] & scum it well until it is clear enough; &
add to it 3 pennyworth powder of pepper & 1 pennyworth powder of cloves
& let it cook well together. & when it is cold put it into the vessel
of the barreled up previously mentioned mead [add it back into the barrel the
20 gallons came out off]; add it to it, & close it well as it is said
before.
Twenty gallons of
pressed comb cooked in 3 gallons of malt seems like a too small ratio of solid
to liquid. Unexpectedly, I found from experience that boiling comb in a sugar
solution does not generate a significant amount of melted wax and as the combs
are probably also somewhat wet, even after manual pressing, they could
conceivably have some crystallized honey remnants left to add to the must. When
the combs are boiled in the wort/must the scum will float to the top, just like
with clarifying honey, and would have to be removed "scome hem wel til thei be cleer inowgh" at the same time. And
while Hieatt & Butler thought the small quantity of pepper and cloves "would
not make a very spicy drink", adding boiled wax combs to the mix
significantly changes the taste of the mead (mead made with honey in which wax
has been boiled has a very distinctive spicy, earthy taste).
Conclusion.
The translation of
the two Curye on Inglysch mead
recipes by Hieatt & Butler, even though not completely understood,
theoretically makes sense. It took some dedicated experimental archaeology, so
to speak, to come to the conclusion the modern interpretation did not add up
and a different way of thinking was needed. Instead of looking at individual
recipes as singular snippets, sometimes it's necessary to see a recipe within a
broader historical context. For example, the cooking technique blanching
historically meant soaking in cold water until the almond skins came off, while
in modern times it means pouring over boiling water until the almond skins come
off. While the end result seems the same, almonds soaked with the modern method
tends to make dry crumbly marzipan, while cold soaked almonds makes great
sticky marzipan, just like grandma used to make. I learned not to assume just
because a word or technique had a modern equivalent, it therefore historically
meant the same. While seething and boiling might actually mean simmering and
boiling in one recipe, when dealing with brewing recipes I now tend to double
check (is there wax involved? What happens to the life honey?). When emulating
a historic recipe, I look for similar recipes and check if there are nuances to
the techniques & ingredients used; it might explain something I did not
even realize might be questionable. And just because something was written down
eight hundred years ago does not make it infallible: people make mistakes,
especially with the older texts the artisans were not the scribes; translators
made errors, as recipes would be translated and republished (no medieval
copyright), and some people are just better brewers than others.
When interpreted
within a broader context, the two Curye
on Inglysch mead recipes work surprisingly well and work well together.
Recipe 9 makes good basic mead and includes detailed albeit cryptic information
on the processing of the comb, which is omitted by many later period mead
recipes. For now - until new information presents itself - recipe 10 seems to
be meant as an addition to a barrel of mead made with recipe 9, to back sweeten
and spice up mead with boiled beeswax comb, for just that special occasion. And
who'd have thought that…
Want to read more? Check out my (newly updated) brewing paper Of Hony, a collection of Mediaeval Brewing
Recipes, listing 46 period mead recipes, on Academia.edu at:
https://www.academia.edu/31052051/Of_Hony_-_A_collection_of_Mediaeval_brewing_recipes
References:
Butler, Charles. The Feminine
Monarchie. 1609. Oxford: 1623.
https://books.google.com/books?id=f5tbAAAAMAAJ&dq=the+feminine+monarchie+butler&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Transcription by Susan Verberg.
Digby, Kenelme. The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir
Kenelme Digby Knight Opened, 1669
The Project
Gutenberg EBook of The Closet of Sir
Kenelm Digby Knight Opened. Anne MacDonell (ed.), 2005
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16441
Hagen, Ann. A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and
Drink: Production and Distribution. Norfolk, UK: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995.
Hieatt, Constance B. & Butler, Sharon (ed). Curye on Inglysch, English culinary manuscripts of the 14th
century (including the Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society. London:
Oxford University Press, 1985.
Private communication with Peter Olson (East Kingdom brewing Laurel
lærifaðir Magnus hvalmagi).
Rasmussen, S.C. The Quest for
Aqua Vitae. SpringerBriefs in History of Chemistry, 2014.
Verberg, Susan. Of Honey, a
Collection of Mediaeval Brewing Recipes. 2017.
https://www.academia.edu/31052051/Of_Hony_-_A_collection_of_Mediaeval_brewing_recipes
Links:
http://gtb.inl.nl/openlaszlo/my-apps/GTB/Productie/HuidigeVersie/src/inlgtb.html?owner=MNW
Images:
Protz, Roger. The Ale Trail.
Eric Dobby Publishing, 1995, p. 30
All photography copyright by Susan Verberg.
------
Copyright 2016 by Susan Verberg. <susanverberg at gmail.com>.
Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided
the author is credited. Addresses
change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is
notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.
If this article is reprinted in a publication, please
place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the
Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track
which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.
<the end>