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Brewing & Vintning
Mixing and racking and best of all, tasting the fruits of your labor.
...or in most cases, the fermented fruits of your labors! Along
with food we like to recreate period beverages. This can encompasses
drinks like mead, a wine made from honey; Kumis,
a Mongolian drink fermented from mare's milk; various beers, ales,
cordials, wines, ciders and non-alcoholic beverages as well (like
the Middle Eastern vinegar-based Sekanjabin to the Scandinavian
birch beer).
In the SCA many modern methods are used in the process of learning
the old ways. We start with "kit beer" and work our way into whole
grain brewing, while we read books that reference period techniques
and recipes.
If you want to brew, what you make is entirely up to you.
It is usually recommended to start out simple with something you've
tasted before. That way, you can judge the results with some knowledge
of what the end result should be like. Don't worry if you've never
done anything like this before, you'll find many knowledgeable people
in the SCA who will be happy to offer whatever help and hints you
need to assist you. Eventually, you may learn such mystical techniques
as floating an egg in your brew to know if it has enough sugar.
Experimental archeology is another term used. You can take the art
of recreating beverages which would have been consumed during 600
- 1600 AD to what ever level you desire. This may mean getting recipes
that were written during this time and doing what is called "Redacting"
or translating them into modern english so we can then recreate
the beverage as they would have done in period. Some changes to
the recipes may be necessary due to the fact that we would not want
to use the dangerous ingredients such as lead and sulphur which
were sometimes used. Like the rest of the SCA, the goal
is to learn through doing.
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