It is winter my friends. The harvest is in, the sun is gone, the ancient inhabitants of this rainy isle would now be busy trying to preserve as much of their forage as possible to last through the dark months. 

Drying, salting, fermenting, these processes would help lock in the goodness of the harvest and prevent spoilage as much as possible by making conditions hostile for unhelpful bacteria and moulds.

Here I present a recipe to help keep Vitamin D deprived immune systems functioning over the winter. We all know that colds and flu are rife at this time of the year. This is a mad science experiment, where I have packed as many anti-virals and immune boosting substances into one drink as possible, without giving it an absolutely horrendous flavour. 

Please note, there is little to no scientific data on the interplay of the ingredients present within this recipe. There is however, a mountain of scientific evidence to show their individual efficacy when it comes to helping our bodies fight disease.

I / the company take no responsibility for any adverse affects of making home-made booze!

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Why make Wild Mead?

I hear you ask. In fact, what is mead? Isn’t that the stuff vikings drank?

Yes, is the short answer. The long answer is that beverages containing fermented honey trace back as far as 8000 years ago, and could well be some of the oldest alcohol in existence. 

At its most basic, a bee hive falls into a puddle, the naturally occurring yeasts (in the soil, carried on the wind, living on the bees themselves) start to ferment the sugars in this water/honey mix. This soon converts to carbon dioxide and alcohol. The reality is, that naturally occurring alcohol pre-dates the evolution of man.

Along our evolutionary path, man discovered fermentation and its fun effects. In many ancient cultures, alcohol took on a sacred status and was said to be bestowed by God/The Gods, used in both ritual, medicinal and recreational aspects of life. The power of fermentation allowed us to preserve nutrients from otherwise decaying matter, as well as unlocking more benefits (e.g. live bacteria in fermented sauerkraut is great for gut health, brewing beer with yarrow is said to increase its potency, fermenting honey from heather flowers increases its protein content). 

I choose to mainly brew with honey, not only because it imparts a unique flavour into the mix, but because of the extra purported health benefits in consuming it vs refined sugars. Honey contains antioxidants, 31 different minerals (including magnesium, phosphorous and potassium), amino acids and pollen [Read more here ]. It exhibits wound healing and antiviral/bacterial/fungal properties. It is not just sugar!

This makes it a prime candidate for our winter drink. Fermentation will break the sugars down, while keeping many of the beneficial properties of honey preserved in the ferment. The alcohol content and anti-microbial compounds in the honey will extend the shelf life of the beverage.

Please note: Use single-source honey where you can. If you pick up a jar that says “a mix of EU and non-EU honeys”, don’t buy it. A recent study was done that shows most of this stuff is adulterated sugar syrup imported from China. 

Local honey is the best to use, but it is expensive for the quantity needed. The next best step is to locate something labelled “Polish wildflower honey”, or “Greek heather honey” and so on. These should be traceable to a single country, pure, and will have an exciting array of flavours that will differ from the fake stuff.

Primitive meads were sometimes made using the entire bee hive, meaning the fermentation process benefitted from other hive products like propolis, royal jelly and even the venom from angry bees [Stephen Harold Buhner, Sacred and Healing Beers]. We’re all about saving the bees here at Totally Wild, so we’ll spare their hives, in place of their delicious honey. 

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The Other Stuff

As discussed earlier, mead at its most basic is water, honey and yeast. If you’re not interested in my mad science experiment, you can skip this bit and follow the steps below (omitting all other ingredients) to create a basic, but tasty mead.

Here we’ll discuss the other ingredients used to give our immune systems a helping hand:

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Elder Berries

Not to be eaten raw. Foraged around September time, these gifts from the Elder tree have a rich folkloric history of helping fight disease. Traditionally, the Elder Mother, the spirit of this wonderful tree, was asked for permission before any part of the plant was harvested. 

She would respond: “Why should you be granted access to such things?”

The answer is: “Elder Mother, in time I will come to you, my body will be returned to the Earth and in that time I will pay for this bounty and help I request”.

The reverence with which this plant was treated by Pagan societies reflects the value it brought to their medicine. In the modern day, it has been proven that parts of the Elder tree, flowers and berries included, contain anti-viral compounds that help the body fight against disease [Read more here]. The berries are also rich in vitamin C which is another aid to a functioning immune system. 

Later, we will simmer these berries at 65-75 degrees C to destroy any cyanide-containing compounds present in them, while preserving the vitamin C.

Elder Berries before separation from their stems.

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Hogweed Seeds

Hogweed is mainly for flavour here, but also rumoured to be an effective treatment for chest complaints.

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Ginger Root (not foraged)

“Ginger is a great source of vital vitamins and minerals, including iron, magnesium, vitamins B6 and C, and zinc. These vitamins and minerals along with ginger’s antioxidant properties can help strengthen your immune system. Gingerol helps ease common cold symptoms, like muscle fatigue and sore throat. It can also help fight symptoms of the flu.” [Read More here ]

It has been found that fresh ginger has antiviral action against respiratory viruses in humans [Read more here].

Not only this, it tastes great in things like mulled wine!

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Cinnamon and Cloves (not foraged)

Cinnamon and cloves are included mainly for flavour, but cinnamon does possess antifungal properties, so will be helpful to prevent our brew from turning into vinegar.

If you spot some Wood Avens while you’re out and about, the roots can be substituted for cloves to achieve the same flavour.

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Turkey Tail

This is where it gets weird. Yes I put mushrooms in my mead. 

Turkeytail is currently the subject of some very interesting anti-cancer research. Some studies have shown it is effective against a multitude of viruses too, while provoking the body into producing its own defensive measures [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/turkey-tail-mushroom?c=1483593010001#antimicrobial-properties ].

There is little data I can find on dosage when it comes to Turkeytail, so I did a rough calculator based on the info I could find, using a handful of dried fungal bodies for a gallon of mead.

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Birch Polypore

More mushrooms, yes you read that right.

This amazing bracket fungus has been proven to demonstrate action against flu, West Nile Virus and even HIV.

It contains polysaccharides, which provide energy for cellular metabolism [P.Stamets, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms]. 

Again, it is hard to find exact dosages for this mushroom. I settled again for a handful to 1 gallon of mead, as it is better to under-dose than overdose when it comes to these fungi.

An overdose won’t kill you, but it might give you a stomach upset. These mushrooms are also very bitter, so we don’t want the flavour taking over from all the nicer ingredients we add.

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Wild Yeast

I created a wild yeast culture by mixing a small jar of water, a tsp of honey, fresh elderberries and some sloes, which are also a good source of wild yeast. After a few days, this started bubbling, and was ready to use to start my larger fermentation.

Wild yeast typically yields a lower alcohol content than commercial wine yeast, which is good in this circumstance. We need a level of alcohol content to extract useful compounds from some of our ingredients (e.g. the mushrooms, which have both water and alcohol soluble compounds), but we don’t want a level of alcohol so high that regular consumption will come at a detriment to our immune system.

Most wild yeast produces a wine/beer/mead of approx 5% alcohol. 

When the wild yeast dies off/goes dormant when the alcohol content becomes too much for them, they form a sediment in the drink, making it look cloudy. For fancy alcohol, we’d wait until the liquid has clarified before drinking. In this situation, we’ll drink it cloudy, as dead/dormant yeast is rich in B vitamins, another boost to our immune system, hurrah! [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nutritional-yeast ]

Some of our ingredients. From left to right, wild yeast starter, single source honey, dried birch polypore, hogweed seeds

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Equipment Needed to Make Wild Mead at Home

In the spirit of our ancestors (and out of respect to my wallet), I have made this brewing process as primitive/low tech as possible.

For a gallon of mead you will need:

• 2 Demijohns or fermentation vessels
• 1 airlock
• 1 rubber tubing or siphon
• A gallon cooking pot
• A wooden spoon for mixing
• Enough bottles for a gallon of liquid (usually works out around 5 or 6 wine bottles)
• 1 gallon of water
• Measuring jug
• Optional: potato masher

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Ingredients

• 1200g of honey
• Approx 20 heads of elderberries (collect the heads, then separate the berries from the stems – discard stems)
• Thumb sized piece of ginger
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 4 cloves
• A handful of chopped, dried turkeytail
• A handful of chopped, dried birch polypore
• 1tbsp hogweed seeds
• Tbsp of lemon juice for flavour
• Yeast starter, wild or otherwise. Prep wild yeast solution a few days in advance.

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My Wild Mead Recipe

I measure a lot of things by hand or eye. This entire process was experimental, you don’t need to follow it to the letter. Just know the foundational elements of how to ferment, have fun and don;t be afraid to make mistakes!

• Prep thy vessel

I am now beyond the stage of bothering to sterilise my equipment unless there is mould around, or I’ve just bought new equipment to use.

If your demijohns have yeast residue from a previous ferment, good news, that brown layer may contain dormant yeast, which can become active again in the presence of moisture, warmth and sugar. Some cultures would purposefully carve channels into the walls of their fermentation vessels to allow yeast to settle and go dormant, to be reactivated next time they were due to brew.

If you are more particular than me, then by all means sterilise your equipment with a campden tablet or a small amount of bleach.

• Bubble bubble, toil n trouble

Bring your gallon of water to the boil, then allow it to cool. In the case of using tap water, this will help evaporate some of the chorine present, reducing the chances that it will harm your yeast. 

Add your ginger, cinnamon, cloves, handfuls of birch polypore and turkeytail, boiling for 10 mins until the water has gone a deep brown. We have now extracted some of the water soluble chemicals in the mushrooms.

Reduce the heat to just below a simmer, then add your elderberries and hogweed seeds. Simmer at approx 65 C for another 10 minutes. Use a potato masher or wooden spoon to squash the berries and extract the most juice.

• Muh sugar, muh baby, muh honey

Allow the mixture to cool until it is just warm to the touch, 40 C or below. Add your 1200g of honey to the mix, stirring until it is dissolved. We do this at a lower temp to preserve the more delicate components in the honey from destruction by heat.

At this stage you should be waking up your yeast solution. If you prepped a wild yeast solution, it should be bubbling away by now. Give it a shake to stir up the sediment. If using commercial yeast, add it, with some nutrient, to a small bowl of warm water.

• Fill thy vessel

Pour the mixture into the demijohn with the aid of your measuring jug. This is a messy process. Most guides recommend passing the mixture through a filter to remove the berry husks before fermentation, however I left mine in to provide more food for the yeast.

I made sure to include the boiled mushroom fragments when adding the mixture into the demijohn, as the second stage of the fermentation process will extract the alcohol soluble compounds in the mushrooms. 

• Merry Yeastmas

Seal the demijohn with the airlock, wait for the demijohn to cool to around body temperature. Take the airlock off, add your yeast solution, and re-seal. Your vessel is ready, let the sacred ferment begin!

• The bryggjemann cometh

Leave your demijohn in a warm, dark place. In Norwegian folklore, it was said that the spirit of the bryggjemann (what we now know is yeast) will enter the jar at night and make it boil. By the morning, you should see bubbles appearing in your vessel. If this doesn’t happen, don’t panic! Fermentation can take up to a week to start.

Once your liquid is “boiling”, the bryggjemann has paid your jar a visit, and your liquid is now alive with his spirit! (The anaerobic respiration of yeast).

• Wait

Because of the complex sugars present in honey, fermenting mead takes longer than a normal beer or wine. You can expect the bubbling to stop in about 3 weeks. 

• Nice rack

Syphon (or rack) your mead using a piece of rubber tubing, into your secondary Demijohn. There will be sediment, berry husks etc. at the bottom of your vessel, syphon down to this layer and discard the rest of the debris.

• Bottle & quaff

Leave your brew in the demijohn for at least 3 months before bottling, or you risk incomplete fermentation, and might create some exploding bottles!

Syphon the mead from your secondary ferment into your bottles with the rubber tubing.

Your mead in this case will be mildly carbonated, as we won’t be ageing it long enough to clarify and rid itself entirely of CO2.

If you wish to save your yeast for use again, leave the top off the brewing vessel and simply allow the dregs at the bottom of the demijohn to dry. Your own household bryggjemann is now sleeping and ready to be woken up again next time you brew. 

A delicious batch of year-old elderberry mead, left to clarify.

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To Conclude our Wild Mead Exploration

You can drink this mead for the pure pleasure of it, or use it as a home-made cold and flu remedy. I have been drinking my test batch each time I’ve felt the onset of seasonal unpleasantries, and can say that 2 x 100 ml a day has had a positive effect on my recovery. The only time I’ve developed a full-blown cold was when I stopped drinking it!

That said, my methods are completely unscientific. Could it be placebo? Yes. Could it be that I wasn’t actually going to be ill? Yes. 

However, it cannot be denied that this recipe contains a potent cocktail of immune boosting plants and fungi. I will continue to drink it with great pleasure, along with the 4 gallons of other varieties of mead that I made this year (more recipes to come perhaps?).

Connecting with the fermentation process on a personal level, creates an appreciation for the ritual and spiritual aspects that our ancestors observed during the creation of their sacred and medicinal beverages. Learning how to make an 8000 year old drink at home is a very rewarding process, and I encourage you to try it out.

I highly recommend the book Sacred and Healing Beers, by S.H.Buhner, to which I owe much of the knowledge imparted in this blog piece. The section on mead is a goldmine of fantastic information.