Fermenting Mead from ANCIENT Honey
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- Опубликовано: 7 июл 2024
- Thanks to Curiousity Stream for sponsoring this video! Head to curiositystream.com/htme and use code htme to sign up for just $14.99 for the whole YEAR.
In today's episode, we're talking everything bees and beekeeping! We are recreating another ancient beverage, mead, starting right from the source, the bee. In addition, we will also be making our very own primitive protective gear as well as extracting and processing the honey.
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OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO LAUREN ????? SHE HAS A HUGE SKIN BURN THING BEHIND HER LEFT ELBOW AREA !!!!!!! GIRL WHAT HAPPENED ???? (oh nvm it is just tattoos, sigh... -_-")
Did you just make a cult
you might want to revisit all the technologies to get you to fermentation refine your final product to somthing more consistant with a craftsman of the era . the examples produced so far in previous episodes have been proof of concept but not craftsman level you then apply time spent and assign a value to the product.... which would not have been saleable . given that your planning on an alcohol subset to the series and its preperation requires extreme cleanlyness and repatiability i feel you should at least refine pottery glass and metal working skills to a greater level before moving on to manufacturering ingestables . processing of your raw materials has also been poor in the past resulting in failure and inferior products so actually spending time learning more than the history of the process and doing it to provide a larger insight of what is actually needed to make it and make it functional or ediable and also economically , this basically requires you to live the life of the miner or farmer or forester or smith or or or long enough to devolope some skill at each stage of the process to final product. then producing a quantity of each sufficient to make the next part economically viable and so on until your producing quantities of finished product at saleable prices in reasnoable time. no im not suggesting you grow 10 aceres of corn then harvest it by hand and dry it and mill it and and and moonshine,,,,but have a garden grow enough harvest that dray it all mill it all ,,,buy enough modern corn meal to make x ammount instead of a fraction same for the storage and equipment go ahead and progress to where you blow your own glass carboy then rent the alumimun kegs...the series is great and informational funny at times but i feel your final results are mostly halfassed attempts and wonder what the results would be if you really cared about the artestry of whatever it is your producing not just its ability to saisify a requirement for technological advancment.
To prevent cross-contamination of the vessel you should've burned it in fire to sterilize
why don't you try to make pulque the next time, I will like it.
Kinda unfortunate that this wasnt sponsored by honey
Well, at least it wasn't AIDS shadow leg- ends.
You mean like the Demo-Ranch episode? XD
LOL
Sponsored by who, dear?
Missed opportunity.
It probably was cross contamination. Pottery is porous enough that modern archaeologists can figure out what was in the vessel by testing to see what residues remain in the pottery. Stuff that is very different like cheese and mead wouldn’t have been made in the same vessel. You can’t get them out, so I’d just use new vessels to eliminate the cross contamination.
Spot on. I actually thought that as soon as he mentioned they used the same vessels for cheese
I think they likely picked up some Lactobacillus
Until you can glaze it!
But what if they just heat them up for a while as a way of sanitizing the environment.
@@xenaretos you still have stuff in the pottery itself, and you increase the risk of the pot cracking anyway.
ancient beekeeping suit is a whole another aesthetic.
It feels like a cult uniform
Perfect for Halloween
Prehistoric Shyguy
I know what I’m wearing next Halloween
@@Insorainity bee cult:D
Honestly love how unique an just genuinely educational this channel has been since the start keep up the great work man
For real
@@Kus519 for realzies
Second that.
@@shanej2429 thanks
I wonder what he will do when they get to rockets
The wicker face masks remind me of one of the Crones from the Witcher 3
The brewess, now we know where the inspiration came from.
@@Valenspire Turns out she was no witch, just a lady that got high on her own supply of mead :P
that was the first thing that came to my mind when i saw this
Same XD
I could almost hear their voices saying:
We are the Crones of CrookBack Bog
That bee keeping veil looks like a dark souls enemy
It specifically made me think of the Dragon Acolytes from Dark Souls II.
Either Dark Souls or Silent Hill.
The Witcher 3, one of crones had such helmet.
That was my first thought. Dark souls or darkest dungeon
@@Sientir yep
Lowkey Halloween episode. If I saw someone walking around with one of those wicker masks and bronze tools I'd probably run away.
You would probably?, I would definately
Not to mention the "nope" factor of all those bees, especially the buzzing at the end. I have a phobia of stinging insects and though I'm usually chill with honeybees (since they're not nearly as aggressive as, say, paper wasps and yellow jackets, and since they're such important pollinators) seeing and HEARING so many of them was pretty freaky for me.
:|
"It's not exactly sour", "cross contamination with the cheese"...
Yeah, that's lacto-fermentation for you. Never use porous receptacles for more than one fermenting products, they WILL cross contaminate HARD.
I love how this episode turned out & we had so much fun making it. Happy Halloween everyone!
You are the best thing to happen to this channel! You give so much energy and life to the videos.
it looked like tons of fun!! those masks are Halloween aesthetic af. looks like something outta the blare witch project lol
i'm kind of obsessed
@@mattbalfouri6572 no
@@austinbevis4266 no what?
@@mattbalfouri6572 the channel was so awesome when it was just Andy and maybe he would occasionally visit codys lab or grant Thompson
Pro tips for anyone interested in trying out homemade mead:
Cleanliness is next to godliness especially when it comes to the carboys. Don't use dish soap though, use food-grade cleaning products.
Don't use must from previous fermentations unless you know what you are doing when it comes to yeast. Use cider/wine/mead yeast from a proper yeast producer instead.
Don't heat the honey.
Keep the carboy in a dark place between 17-21°C, like in you pantry, during fermentaion.
Gently swirl the mead once a day during the initial 3-4 days to remove some CO₂.
If you can't get a carboy/the correct yeast, From personal experimenting I can tell you that a bottle of spring water + honey + bread yeast with any kind of air lock and some time produces decent mead. The bottle is sanetized before the water goes in, so that's taken care of, use one fresh squeeze bottle of honey (+-350grams) a 1.5 liter bottle of water, but remove .4-.5l of water for head room as it will foam a lot more than professional yeasts. Ad the honey to the leftover water add bread yeast, put on an air lock and wait. Drinkable after a few weeks and clarifies over +-3-6 months with my tries for the best taste. Although not ideal a baloon with holes pricked into it with a sewing needle/pin can act as a very low end/ghetto airlock, although most online stores sell a decent one for 2-3€/$ so if you buy anything, get that.
@@MrJon1157 Yes that works great, I am looking into making lower ABV ones as with my usual mix I top out at about 18 ABV. The bread yeast one I described above is the result of testing out a ton of different option to where I ran out of containers to ferment in, I did add a good airlock myself but have used the balloon trick when I just started making meads.
And wait a few months till it clears up. Mead should be clear, not cloudy
We generally just used Chlorine to clean our stuff, and rinsing it with water 5-8 times.
For cleaning products if you're really unsure how well it's going to kill stuff, for me just going with chlorine is a good idea since it basically kills 99.9% (as seen on tv ;) ) of bacteria.
The rinsing part 5-8 times with fresh water (tap is good enough) is a precaution, as long as your bottle/vessel doesn't contain large chunks of organic matter or pores normally it should actually be "laboratory clean" after the water wash, the chlorine first step is just making sure all traces of life is gone.
I say "laboratory clean" because after washing something 5 times with water (don't be a smart ass) it's generally considered clean enough for most basic functionss, since water is a great solvent. We weren't doing critical chemistry or biology here, but just making "foods and beverages" a cheap disinfectant and the water would dilute and wash off the left over chlorine and bio-mater.
What also matter is the air log, just because most bad taste is going to come from the oxygen, because unless you farted in your glass bottle the biggest contamination is going to be the yeast by a couple of GRAMS not ppm, so it should have no problem overpowering any other contamination.
At least that was our logic back then, when we allegedly made bootleg liquor.
oh my.. a long time ago, a friend gave me his home made. one was straight, one was spiced and the other i forget. actually, he gave me six brown bottles. i loved them all. id love to make mead.
he did say some parts of the process were labour intensive.. i never got to thank him for his gift.. i still think about it today and i think it was early 2000s when i got it.
Maybe you should glaze your pottery to make the vessel easier to clean? I would be really interested in seeing a primitive glazing process.
Ash + Slip = Simple Glaze
@@Serahpin what is slip?
@@PyrusFlameborn Watered down clay to the point that you can paint with it.
i feel like i remember them making a glaze in one of their vids
@stockart whiteman ty
I like how it’s just a normal person not some expert on the subject it really tells you what you can do
Yeah. Sometimes I think they could be experts, but I like learning from the technology with them
The cheese for sure is what did it! Cheese being a fermentation process itself, surely left material in the pores of your vessel.
I realy hope you are wrong and Andy thought about heating the vessel out before reusing it for another project.
You might be right though...
I love this channel's content! I do have a suggestion though: since the goal of the current series is to demonstrate how humans progressed from technology to technology throughout the ages, it wouldn't be outside the realm of believability to take classes from professionals like potters and brewers so you can improve your tools and skills. I don't think that violates the spirit of the channel because you've already demonstrated that you can achieve the technology from scratch, and taking modern classes would simulate the hundreds and thousands of years and generations of practice in producing things like clay pottery and metal tools. It may lead to better results via better tools that use the same technologies that you've unlock along your journey! Just a suggestion from a big fan! Thank you guys!
If you watch, he does actually do that sometimes.
@@elijahhmarshall Been watching the channel for a long time, so I have definitely seen the pros he consults like the sword casting guy, the Egyptian weaponry/combat specialist, the iron bloom smelting guys, the brewing guy. What I'm getting at is that it would still be enjoyable content, in line with the theme of the channel, to see the hosts go through classes that increase their skill and help them produce better, fit-for-purpose tools. For example, if they made a larger, better designed earthenware vessel only to be used for fermenting drinks, they could avoid the cross contamination from the cheese making episode. I dunno, it's just an idea.
Solid suggestion
FYI, in most places when they say bees are at risk, they mean solitary bees (which are actually most species), not social bees.
ALso perhaps the issue with your fermentation is the vessel. It could be leaching things from the clay. It's also possible that this time, as the plaster cured, the off-gassing negatively affected the ph of the mead at the beginning and then there was a runaway train effect.
If it made it more acidic, I think that is actually desired. I have watched videos that explain that it is a good idea to add a little citrus to your mead to help.
I do know that mead can be pretty bad when it is young. I am curious if it just needs to be aged and degassed.
@@Dizzykitty817 I wonder if the problem was too much airflow. Maybe a narrow-opening pot would be preferred, with an upside-down cup with spacers for airflow placed on the inside bottom of the cup and the same spacers touching the lip of the pot, with plaster in between the outside of the pot's lip and inside of the upside-down cup. That way, the airflow could be reduced by one or two orders of magnitude (each order of magnitude = 10 times more than the previous order of magnitude, for those who wonder).
P
Not gonna lie. One of my favorite episodes so far. Especially since my father is a local bee keeper up here in Minnesota and I actually use some of his honey to make mead of my own. Im glad to see a great episode I can really connect to home!
Would have been the perfect episode to be sponsored by honey
One thing to make note of is also that wild ferments do tend to turn out more sour, but since you used the same yeast starter for both the glass vessel and the clay one, I would definitely assume that there is some contamination in the clay vessel going on there. Since clay is slightly porous, especially if not properly vitrified, gunk can get trapped in those pores. My suggestion would be to make a new vessel that is properly vitrified (shouldn't be an issue at this point, given that you can get a furnace hot enough to smelt iron) and use that solely for brewing, if you're planning on doing any more of it in the series.
Yep
The queen bee ceremony at its pure production quality at the end made me like and share
That ending physically hurt my eyes lol
I love how the chanel went from digging rocks heat em till red hot to a honey cultists
The part about how we're loosing more and more pollinators, made me even more grateful and happy just how many I saw in my garden this year. I saw more variety of bees than I have ever seen in my life.
Create a flower meadow and you'll do the bees a great service!
yay!
one of these days, Andy will figure out how that fermenting pot works... i just know it.
Loved the intro!
Did you know term "Honeymoon" comes from the Babylonian custom of the father of one of the married couple providing 1 month's worth of mead? The month of mead (or "moon" of "honey") provided enough mead for the new couple to get their own mead production going.
Yes I did know that, it’s one of the reasons I’m making mead rn for my sisters wedding. I’m not making a months worth though
Last time I was this early the bee's were still pollinating the flowers to make the honey.
1:03
"Let's get started and see how it turns out"
1:05
*"PFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT!!!!"*
The "bee" on her hand at 8 min is actually a sneaky wasp lol
Yellow jackets kill bees in my area.
"Hmm, that looks like a wasp. I wonder if anyone commented on it." :)
How to make everything: Human sacrifice.
Step one: We're going to create a lure to get in a potential "volunteer".
Step two: Pick a deity we're going to worship, I personally would go for the chaos god of sickness and decay Nurgle, maybe he gets rid of Covid for us.
Step three: Stab that volunteer real good in the gabba.
Step four: ???
Step five : Profit!
Ninkasi, the Sumerian Goddess of Beer, might be a better choice!
Ironically, you aren't far-off with people think things actually work.
Step 4: ????
Step 5: repeat
@@convolver1350 I would have gone with: "The comfy chair".
Step 6: Death by ?
Step 7: Apocalypse
Step 8 Judgement day
Step 9: Loss?
Step 10: Hell
Mkay, you go ahead edgelord lul
You could probably build an ancient air trap for this, instead of using the plaster method. Look for "pythagoras' cup", you could place the fermenting pot in the bottom part of the cup mechanism, so that air escapes through the upper portion of the system
Bee's wax, and glazed pottery: is there anyway to make an amphora that is air tight with a water based airlock?
based on the time and look, that seems like short mead. the second ferment is what makes it proper nice dry mead. if you've only ever made short mead you're in for a treat with the real thing.
I was thinking that a 2 week fermentation was short. My first batch fermented for several months, and my most recent batch has been bubbling away (roughly 1 bubble every 10s or so from the air lock) for just over a month. 2 weeks will result in only partial fermentation. My first batch took several months (including settling/carboy conditioning)
I love the fact that they just went on what looks like private property or park and started breaking branches hurting the tree
The candles look like shrek’s a ear wax candels
OMG!! LOL, you just HAD to go there!!!!! 😂😂😂
i love the wacky and fun energy the new hosts bring to the show
A video featuring beekeeping and mead. I can tell this video is buzzing with excitement. Cheers!
I make mead, and seeing this episode finally get posted just made my year.
When you realize that this channel is just a giant alcohol scheme
Well, "how can we get drunk" has been one of humanity's driving questions since the dawn of civilisation ;)
Its a large part of human history. Alcohol is a social lubricant.
Guess what boyo, most of human history is a giant alcohol scheme! We've been chasing after stuff to get us drunk since we first let some grain water sit too long.
@@starlight4649 that and fermented dairy. mmmmmmmmmmmmm cheese.. yogurt..
Orange nails are a nice touch for the Halloween episode.
It’s cool that the bees get to keep some of their beeswax, as opposed to none of their beeswax.
My grandpa raised bees for years and I got to watch him while growing up and it’s really cool how the process goes all without harming the bees
2 simple ways to make a vax candle is to 1. dipping the wick in to a bach of liquid but allmost cold vax and build layers of wax untill you have a candle. or 2. to melt the vax and pore it on a flat surface so you get a sheet of wax then put a vick on it and simply roll the wax sheet around the vick a few laps.
Why'd ya get the W right once?
At first I felt like it was unintentional, but.....
I think the wicker mask was in the background of the last video some where, I remember spotting it
Thanks to Curiousity Stream for sponsoring this video! Head to curiositystream.com/htme and use code htme to sign up for just $14.99 for the whole YEAR.
Can't wait for the Ancient Green Screen Effects episode
This channel actually helped inspire me to start up a bit of a brewing hobby of my own (with cheap but modern systems to prevent nastiness), and I've had a lot of success making wine out of jam. It's literally just jam+water+yeast, and you can change it up how you like. I'm making some for my sister's birthday present now, and it seems to be going well. That said, I think I'm going to learn from your mistake and keep any cheese making I may do well separated from booze making.
Bottled juice works great too.
@@DanCooper404 as long as it doesn't have too many preservatives in it.
It looks like a cross contamination. Maybe it is time to try create glass vessels again my friend...
glass is hard af
Not the time yet
Maybe just work on glazing the pots
Dr Stone vibes
Or GLAZE!
I like that you're fully committing and also using the same quality special effects they had in the Iron Age.
"Next, we paid a visit to Ames Farm to collect some of their honey, with owner, Brian."
"I'm Brian, from Ames Farm."
I'm just stoked that people are appreciating Andys (And Teams) amazing work, you guys ROCK!
My dad and several of my brothers are beekeepers. I grew up with honeybees, and it's always interesting to see the differences in how different keepers manage their bees and extract the honey.
It is a possibility that the clay container created some off flavors in your ancient mead since some of the clay may have dissolved into it during the fermentation process(I don't know how sturdy clay is in that process , just something i thought could be a factor). The most likely issue is a culmination of that and the contaminants from the cheese.
The current cast makes it feel so fun. I love how playful and competent HTME has become.
honestly this guy deserves to have 10 million subscribers
Alright, go ahead and make a couple million accounts. If you think so. Lead by example.
@@theblackbaron4119 LOL
@@theblackbaron4119 lol
Given that you're going to turn the honey into mead anyway, it might have taken a lot less time to separate the honey from the wax if you pre-thinned the honey with some of the water you later diluted the honey with anyway. As for the contamination issue, cross-contamination issues would have been well-known; there were cheese makers who used the same rooms for the same varieties of cheese to avoid stray cheese flavors. For alcohols, you want a narrow mouthed jug (or a cask) with minimal headspace, so that the fermentation easily fills that with co2 and keeps oxygen out. I've done plenty of homebrews where the airlock went dry or I neglected to fill it properly, and it's far less important than just having a very low ratio of surface area of brew to volume of headspace above it.
Real "The Crows Have Eyes" energy in the end, there.
I love how you touch on the environment alot, without sounding like you're grandstanding. Great job guys
This is easily my favorite series in youtube. And I always need more Lauren in my life.
Excited to see new primitive brews! Also you may want to leave it sit for longer.
You have to sterilize you stuff if you use it for different types of fermentation yeast and bacteria can lay dormant for a long time
I had a hive when I was a kid.
Something the video can’t convey is that wonderful smell when extracting the honey. ❤️
Thank you! I just learned how to make the coolest Halloween costume ever.
Loved it! Perfect amounts of education and fun.
There’s something so primal about watching a grown man crushing a honeycomb with his bare hands
I've made mead a few times, it always came out pretty great. Probably one of my more favorite drinks, anyway.
I got an extra hour tonight to sleep...and there went 18 minutes of it. Keep it comin', HTME. Must-see Y.T.
Great job guys. I hope this series lives for a long while. I never understood why there are always so many people being negative about you guys failing at what you’re trying to make.
Isn’t it the point of this channel (at least since the reset) to learn how to make things from scratch. Failing is always a key part of learning ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
7:11 "You get used to it."
*Goblin slaying and "I see." intensifies*
the candle making is the most satisfying of them all
Love the vids man! Keep them up!
I'll bet dollar to dollar you had a lactobacillus infection in the mead that went wrong. I think the ancient people dealt with it by making lots of it and hoping for the best.
I've made mead a few times, have not found one I thought was "bad", but my favorite used apple juice with honey (no other waters) and an ale yeast (like the flavors)...... bottled carbonated. Best stuff I've brewed in 10 years of brewing!
Great episode guys! You put a lot of effort in this one :)
With all of that honey turning into mead, you could really end up getting buzzed!
Ha ha ha I see what you did there
i love everything about this and how campy it is, especially on halloween - gj!
Super love the show guys!
Excellent special effects!
That end tho, very corny, but looks like it was a ton of fun to do :D
I've been watching a lot of these video's lately and it would be great to watch when you get to the time,
Making the first transistor!
Awesome episode and happy Halloween from Montreal. Love the bee costumes and the nightmare wicker mask
A hollow stemmed plant like bamboo or some reeds can be used to make candle moulds easily. Mead doesn’t go to vinegar, it stays fine even open to air fully. A plain bucket works well enough to store it. A simple 1:5 honey to water ratio with your yeast added makes a good mead even in a screw cap bottle left loose enough to just keep bugs out. Ageing the mead for a few months can settle out a lot of the less than ideal flavours you can get in fresh mead.
You guys should do more skits like this hahaha
I bet that enough of the cheese culture remained in the pot, either in the chamber or even in the actual pottery, it's fairly pourous as a material after all!
Also Lauren laughing is the best, makes me smile every time!
11:50 That's so oddly satisfying to watch.
there's no bad day when htme upload new video
bee's wax works great for dip candles (dip wick in liquid wax, then cool water, then wax, then water, and so on) which I'm pretty sure are older than cast candles
This was a really cool one guys really enjoyed watching and always enjoy watching. Keep making great videos you guys
I’m a avid mead maker and it’s really fun!
Been waiting for this
"Don't have a centrifuge"
"Limited in technology"
Have you ever watched Kiwami Japan?
He made a centrifuge from a dowel, a rope, and assorted wood (in the style of those ancient pump drill flywheel thingies).
Those time lapse shots are sweet.
Lol I love the ending
Great video!
This eps was so hyped on insta, And I get why now
That ancient beekeeper looks like one of the Crones from The Witcher 3 tho...
I guess we now know what her design is inspired by
That spit take at the beginning was perfect
I love the cat in the bee costume :)
Thank you!! I made that costume for him :)
I like the yellow jacket just trying to fit in at 8:00
Just hanging around with the honeybees like it belongs here
There's also a third way besides airlocks and plaster, which I've used with my mead fermentation. After a day in an open bucket, the mead is transferred into smaller bottles with corks (it could be actual cork, I've only used ceramic and plastic caps 'cos that's what I have, but why not other materials as well), and the closure is lightly placed on top of the mouth of the bottle. Gotta find the right balance though, too tight and upon opening the explosion is magnificent (good for a slow-motion tho!); too loose and the mead will not be mead. When the fermentation is almost done, it's more tightly sealed. Here in Finland we traditionally drink the stuff on the 1st of May, but I make it throughout the summer!
This was fantastic.
Wow you mofs really outdid yourselves. By far the best channel on this God forsaken platform. 👍
Love the intro!