On this episode, we swing on over to Fargo and talk with Susan Ruud of Prairie Rose Meadery about mead. Be seure to check out our Facebook page for the latest photos and updates. Facebook@theombibulouspodcast
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Mead
SPEAKERS
Susan Ruud, Connor Brekke
Connor Brekke 00:03
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process distillation, in spirits, even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we learn a bit about the ancient beverage of mead. Joining me today is Susan Ruud of Fargo, North Dakota's very own, Prairie Rose Meadery. I'm your host, Connor brekkie. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.
Connor Brekke 00:38
Welcome back to the showroom, buddy. Today I'm joined by Susan Ruud of Prairie Rose Meadery here in Fargo, North Dakota. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me over.
Susan Ruud 00:48
I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Connor Brekke 00:52
And then we're going to talk about one of our... well, my kind of weaknesses here... mead. I love it. It's a... it's a really great beverage. Got a lot of history to it. And yeah, let's have at it. What is mead for the audience?
Susan Ruud 01:07
Well, in its basic sense, mead is fermented honey. So that base of everything is honey. People will call it a honey wine, but where wine is made from grapes or other fruits. Mead is the majority of the fermentable, honey, and then you'll add some other fruit or spice to change it up or fruit and spice or you can do so many things with it.
Connor Brekke 01:26
Yes. And you guys have quite a few different flavors on the menu. But we'll touch on that a bit later here. So it's an old beverage. It's been around for a while.
Susan Ruud 01:36
Yeah, there's probably history of it about a little over 9000 years ago in the pyramids. And then there's conjectural and history of it about 40,000 years ago in Africa. So yeah, very old.
Connor Brekke 01:50
Because we're just looking at some pictures. And there's pottery that dates back from at least 7000 bc in China. So kind of like the proto-mead. I mean, it's a bit different back then. But
Susan Ruud 02:01
hey, well, originally they would have made it probably I mean, they're using natural yeasts. And so might have been a little more sour than ours, it would have been, it would have taken local fruits and spices and stuff and thrown it all into a container along with whatever honey they could find. They would have done that probably Initially, it was originally found by a beehive getting what else tree splitting open or water getting in somehow. And they came along and Oh, hey, let's try this. And oh, that tastes good.
Connor Brekke 02:36
Everybody loves alcohol, that hasn't changed. It's funny how that works. Because Same thing with all alcoholic beverages is all of a sudden something happens, some liquid fruit juice or something is left out, then it just gets fermented. And then some brave soul comes by and takes us out of it. But you know, that's, that's where we are now at. So we got what we got?
Susan Ruud 03:00
Yeah, the Vikings would have drank mead before battle and going into battle after battle. It was the drink of the gods. So they would have went to that they were going to haven't drink Mead. There's quite a bit of history there. And then you go past a Oh, you go Vikings would have had it. The English culture had it. It was the drink of the kings and the Lord and the clergy. They would have also been the monks. So there's there's a lot of there's a lot of history there that is probably more well known. But you go to almost any country in the world and you will find some information about honey drinks, all down through the ages.
Connor Brekke 03:46
Right? I have an interesting thing here about indie Tex the meat or Soma, right around the well 1700 BCE ish and then again back to the Norse mythology capacitor, kind of a godlike being who basically had made pottery created from his blood. So you know, you're drinking, something like that. It's like me, it's pretty important. It was the preferred beverage in the golden age of Greek civilization as well. And then, the epic poem that I think most people remember that movie from 10 years ago, Beowulf, it was featured in that in the original English epic home, not so much in the movie. So we've gone through a bit of a history of Mead, little folklore, but now we're going to get into how it's produced. So it's fermented honey and water, essentially, how similar to making beer is it?
Susan Ruud 04:40
um, other than the fact that you have beverage or the liquid that you add east to not quite too much like Beer Beer, you have to heat the grains to a certain temperature to make the enzymes work with honey, you just dilute the honey. You don't even need to heat it. The app, you just walk, you want to make sure your honey is in a liquid stage. So it'll mix in well with your water. But this can do probably at 90 degrees and it'll it'll mix well reduce mix your honey and your water and you throw in a little bit of nutrient to feed the yeast. Throw your yeast in and let it ferment that that's pretty much basic. Whereas beer, you will keep your grains to 100. And meow. If you want to protein rice, do you want to mash? You want that 150 to get all of the start or the enzymes, starches turned into sugars? And then you've got a mash out. And yeah, there's a lot of time, a lot more time and energy goes into making beer and it ferments quickly beer does. Yeast takes a little bit longer, probably several weeks to ferment out or is beers done in five days?
Connor Brekke 05:53
So with the fermentation process, you need to use a yeast of some sort. Yes. Are there different specific mead yeast or do you use like wine yeasts? Or what
Susan Ruud 06:04
I there are some specific mediators I actually do use a wine yeast. I just like that better. There are several one use out there that are recommended
Connor Brekke 06:15
just depends on which field like me. Yeah,
Susan Ruud 06:17
well, and it depends on your system. There's someone needs that are better for hot hot for hotter fermentations. So they don't, they won't put off as much of the higher alcohols. Whereas our system here we use a cooler fermentation. It's just the yeast I've been used to for many years.
Connor Brekke 06:34
And then to determine you know how potent your drink is, that's usually measured with specific gravity, yeah, or bricks. What is racking a product
Susan Ruud 06:44
racking a product just means that you're going from one tank into another tank or one container into another container. Usually, you'll finish most of your fermentation, you will rack it or transfer it into another container to let the yeast that settled in the bottom stay and it just helps clear it faster
Connor Brekke 07:05
is cloudy mead necessarily a bad thing.
Susan Ruud 07:08
Um, not necessarily for presentation. Many people prefer it crystal clear. Sometimes you start out with it crystal clear and then just especially your fruit ones, I've had a little bit of an issue with a few of them, not all of them most of mine steak crystal clear. I do filter everything down to point four or five microns, but that does still leave a little bit of pectin in there. And sometimes that'll settle out. So if if you got one of my means with a little bit of cloudiness in it, it's probably a pectin haze, which doesn't really change the flavor it just doesn't look quite as bright and exciting. But in today's new world, you go from your beers that used to have to be crystal clear also to excessively hazy beers that actually have almost a thick mouthfeel from the east and and he is and um so I don't think it's a bad thing.
Connor Brekke 08:05
Just depends on what you want to make. Yep. And then how long does the fermentation process take?
Susan Ruud 08:10
Um, my what my on mine I know some of the meat makers are getting them done in 10 days but I think they have better equipment than I do. centrifuge to clarify or to clear them faster. But about four weeks I can have my traditional meat made a little over a lot of them with the fruit and take me about 10 to 12 weeks but it just varies when that when it's done. It's done.
Connor Brekke 08:37
Do you age meat at all?
Susan Ruud 08:39
Um, I haven't aged mine I've when I used to homebrew I always had I mean it took six months to a year so they were aged before we do have some in here in oak barrels that were aging a little bit. So those will be aged. But otherwise no as soon as I said within four to 12 weeks ours are bottled and ready for sale.
Connor Brekke 09:02
But no mead like anything is different varieties are there any like a traditional meat that's like your baseline meat. Are there any varieties that you enjoy more
Susan Ruud 09:14
traditional mead is just honey but if you've had one traditional means you haven't had all traditional means because every single honey will give you a different you know like clover honey is different from Orange Blossom honey is different from Ethiopian honey are every one every honey every flower floral source is totally different and will give you a totally different flavor. And they're all very good. I think they're just going to be different. Then from there you're going to have you can have dry medium or sweet so the same even same clover honey made their ill might be fermented dry, it might be fermented, semi sweet or it might be fermented, very sweet. That makes it a totally different flavor. Then you have your melon Mills which are fruit means you have your method blends with jar spice means you have an all of those can be, you know how many million fruits are around a million, but very, very many fruits, very many spices. And then you can combine each of those fruits with different spices. So you have a fruit and spice mean, there's such a huge variety of possibilities with me that I really couldn't find one. That's just my favorite. I like them all.
Connor Brekke 10:31
And from what I've had, I'd like them all to Yeah, it was kind of a tricky way to ask that question because I'm so used to like the beer world because I know that like you said it depends on the bead depends on the flower depends on the fruit. It depends on the yeast, there's so many factors in there on what kind of meat is, um, wine in the wine world, there's such thing as an ice wine. Is there kind of a similar thing with meat? Can you get that when you freeze meat?
Susan Ruud 10:58
You can I've done that. Not not at as a professional but at home, I froze, I froze some meats and concentrated them they do get much more like a look or it's kind of fun to try that lead, you got to get them very, very cold. So you had to do that. Because me it is, you know, a little bit higher alcohol. So you've got to do it more. Like when it's 20 below outside, which usually isn't a problem. Yeah, you got a couple of weeks and January early February
Connor Brekke 11:32
graduate when you can freezer right? Oh,
Susan Ruud 11:34
yeah. So, but you can also ferment using particular yeasts, you can ferment up to 20 25% alcohol just by feeding your yeast properly. Also also
Connor Brekke 11:51
known as far as serving and enjoying Mead, are there special types of glassware that you need to use or anything for people who've never had Mead, how to approach it.
Susan Ruud 12:01
I do personally prefer to drink first out of glass. I hate drinking out of any plastic or any of that stuff. But that's a personal preference. But I do prefer them more out of bellowed I guess, or wine type glass that comes in at the top because your aromas come out nicer. There isn't at the moment yet one world is working or the mead world is working on it having a specific need the glass, okay, then there's so many different means you're going with so many different means it's hard to pick one glass that works absolutely perfect for all of them. So
Connor Brekke 12:40
in the wine world, yeah, there's like a million different types of glass, right? They matter
Susan Ruud 12:44
white wine glass, and then even in the white wine world, you get a Chardonnay glass and you get a Sauvignon Blanc glass. And yeah, so I you know, eventually I think we will have more glasses that are more mead specific or at least type specific of meat.
Connor Brekke 13:01
Because even though it's meat, it still has as many characteristics and flavors and all kinds of different nuances to it just like wine, it's
Susan Ruud 13:10
more so than wine. I'm fairly certain there's way more meat varieties compared to than wine varieties.
Connor Brekke 13:19
Well, that's why we do this show. So I can help people understand and explore different types of things, where we learned a little bit of history about me today kind of a general overview. So once again, I'd like to thank you Susan for coming on the show. It was always fun to have a new guest and a new expertise. So stay tuned because we'll be having another episode on where you can try some North Dakota Mead. So until next time, cheers. Cheers.
Connor Brekke 13:49
The Ombibulous is made possible with Castos, giving creators the tools to connect with their audience and community. The music is courteous of Pond5. With over 25 million royalty free stock videos, music, photos and sound effects, there's something for every creator. Today's episode was recorded at Prairie Rose Meadery here in Fargo, North Dakota. I'd like to thank Susan for her time and the use of this facility to make this episode possible. For the latest updates, videos, photos and web links to our guests, please consider checking out our Facebook page, The Ombibulous Podcast. And of course a big thank you to all our listeners. Thank you for all of your support. Until next time, cheers