michaelsbagley

Cool! Thanks for sharing all that info Littleneckhalfshell! I'm not set on wood, I was thinking of using wood in my ignorance of not knowing that metal spigots go far back. It's good to know that I now have options. I've been seriously considering eventually trying to get a couple of 3 gallon corny kegs as I am not a huge ale/beer drinker, and it would likely suit me better than the 5 gallon one I have. I'll definitely share pics when I get to that point (in a few months). If you beat me to the mark, I'd love to see what you come up with. I'm wondering if I should split the hiding keg posts into their own thread, as it is a cool topic that stand on it's own... If anyone has any objections to that, let me know.... otherwise I will split it off some time tomorrow.

I saw them first hand at RF5, and they were great! The linen she used on them was amazing, it was a a great weight and colour... I love that linen! Haunting Lilly did an awesome job, and looked great in them as well... I'm sure Kate got at least one or two good pictures of her in the stays, and I would wager Fayma would have gotten many more...

Happy Birthday Lady Brower!!!

If a 10th player can't be found, wife and I could split up on this project and do individual cards rather than joint cards.... But I would prefer to see a 10th participant than splitting our team if possible....

Hah, I knew there had been a really good discussion or two on this before.... Shoe buckles for Period (GAoP) Shoes is a good summary for later period stuff Shoes, Latchets, Buckles, Paging GoF, or other shoe experts is a more in depth thread on both early and later period buckles. Gentleman of Fortune has a good page on the matter as well. Hope one of these helps!

So I spoke with Nick last night, and he had just finished the first racking of this ale. He said that while fermentation has settled dramatically by this point (8 days out) it has not stopped entirely. He also stated that the fermentation over the first three days was VERY turbulent, so violent it wound up blowing the airlock off a few times (likely because of the honey in my opinion). Anyways, lastly he said the mostly fermented wort tasted amazing and that once this stuff is ready in a week or two it will likely be a really good ale. I'm probably going to loan Nick my Kegging gear for this batch so as to test it out and also give me a chance to learn to use it before I start on trying to recreat period ales (with the exception of using modern keggin on the period recipe).

I haven't paid close enough attention, but I think BlackJohn or GoF have, but the vibe I have gotten from reading in on many of the conversations in the past is as the period wore on, lacing pretty much disappeared. While it is possible to have one pair of shoes set up for lacing and buckles, I think the two seperate sets of holes one would like need to have in order to do so, would affect the structural integrity of the latchets... So I don't think it would be advisable. My suggestion, stick with the buckles....

Great, let me negotiate with the wife before commmitting... So don't count us in quite yet... But I would lay heavy odds on us being in.

Would you consider allowing myself and wife to enter as a couple? We would BOTH be on the 12 cards rather than just one of us... Nell to answer your question the blurb on the link Ransom posted suggested about baseball collector card size.

MadL, that looks freaking awesome!!! You need to get drunk and do stuff like that more often... that is just inspiring.

Once Fayma gets her pics sorted and posted.... Let's just say wow.... I'm a little confused that wife didn't post the pics of us together at the ball... Okay, Im going to relate a short tale of something that happenned to me Friday night. Good for a chuckle... Kate and I arrived around 10:00 PM, we got settled in our room, relaxed for a bit and then decided to go down and see if there was anyone about. Well there were plenty of people we knew about, and just about all of them were in quite a state. I'm sure there are a few tales to be told during this part of the evening, but I'm not going there (yet). After a bit, we retreated to M.A.d'Dogge's chamber for further beverage consumption. So good ol' Allutious starts passing around the Guiness. They're those bottles of Guinness draught with the little CO2 thingies in them that are supposed to carbonate the guiness on openning unlike normal cans and bottles. So M.A.d'Dogge opens his, no problem, wife opens hers, again no problem, Brian opens his, no problem... and then I crack mine open... Woofer strikes again. No carbonation. Dutch, when I find out which one of your crew cursed me with that nick name... There is gonna be hell to pay! Now I can't even open a beer without living up to that name!!! It's bad enough I can't get ignition on a musket, but to take away my beer!!!! That is just criminal!!!!!!

Okay, Becky will have full garb ready for this event, in fact the hardest part is already done. I will need her measurments (I can't find them from when I did Bucky's clothes).. So just how... uhm.... how padded... Uhm... How big.... uhm... How stacked would you like Becky to be? Was she (in her life) a woman of bountiful virtues? Or was she petite and demure? Somewhere in between?

Okay, here are a good many of the photos from the wife's camera (most of which she took)... Kate Souris's RF5 Photobucket

Out of a series of unlikely circumstances, I have now become the owner of a pair of the Loyalist Arms shoes over this past weekend. They're pretty comfortable for the most part, but the heels on them are very hard, so after some extended wear, they did start to hurt my heels a bit. I'm pretty sure a cushiony insole will fix that problem perfectly. They are pretty slick on tiled floors as well, I'm hoping once I wear them some more and rough up the soles a bit, that will take care of that problem some, but if not, I'll be following MadL's lead and try to find a way to make them less slippy.

I'd like to hear more about how you hide modern Kegs inside a wooden vessel (and by wooden vessel, I assume that you don't mean the ship ;-) ) also, what do you use for the 'tap' ? What kind of modern Keg are you using? The stainless soda syrup containers that some home brewer's use? or the small 5 liter mini kegs that also some home brewer's use? or are you talking true comercial kegs? I once years ago put up a quarter barrel comercial keg of home brew just for the heck of it. The trouble is keeping it cold when you have those large amounts, most people with kegs of any size usually keep it cool if not cold to keep it from 'going off' at least for beer that is, wine or mead would I guess be a different matter altogether. I have give thought to putting one of the 5 liter kegs into a 3 gallon wooden barrel with some ice and just plumbing it out to look like the beer was coming from the wooden keg. I have a stainless tap for the 5 liter kegs that uses a small detachable CO2 source that hooks up to a tire valve fitting on the tap. When you need it to pressure, you just pull the trigger. It uses the small disposable CO2 cylinders, although I have the large CO2 tank and regulator from when we used to keep half barrels in the old refrig in the garage. You guessed it.... Basically, I want to put a modern cornelius keg (the 5 gallon soda kegs home brewers use) into a wooden barrel or cask. I plan to hide the air cannister in there as well, and there should be plenty of room for ice on top of it all. The spigot I currently have for my Corny Keg setup is plastic and quite obviously so. I would likely try and hide it between uses, but eventually I would try to get a spit that looks more like wood (they do sell them). I don't think there are any spigots for home keggers that would look perfect, so this would have to be one of those "close enough" kind of things.

I think what BlackJohn is trying to convey is the same thing I was a page or two back in this thread... I think I may have annoyed some people using the terms I chose... So this time I will user numbers. Please note, the number I am using are for example only and may not represent the true fact of the matter... Fugawees and/or Jardigans are about 85% accurate for GAoP The Loyalist shoes are about 95% correct for GAoP Both are great, one is just closer to the mark... I hope this more clearly conveys things and my putting numbers to this doesn't offend anyone.

Okay, slow morning here in the office, so I'll try and get through step 2... Now you've collected your gear, you've shopped for ingredients... Now to make the stuff. Except I didn't quite finish the shopping for ingredients, because one needs to know how much honey to buy. As a general rule you will use 3 pounds (~1.4 kg) (by weight) of honey for each gallon of mead you plan on making. A rough estimate is that a quart (~1 litre) of honey is about 3 pounds (just in case your honey seller sells by volume instead of weight). So assuming you've taken my advice and used either a 3, 5 or 6 gallons container, you will need either 9 (~4 kg), 15 (~6.8 kg) or 18 (~8.2 kg) pounds of honey respectively, or 3 quarts (~3 litres), 5 quarts (~5 litres), or 6 quarts (~6 litres). Use the best honey you can find! I can't stress this enough... Avoid that "Billy Bee" or similar brands from the grocery store like the plague. Clover honey is usually not the best either, wildflower honey is usually the cheapest honey you can find that has a decent flavour to it. For those who like dark beers or ales, try using buckwheat honey if you can find it in sufficient quantities at a price that won't hurt your pocket book. Orange Blossom honey is a favourite amongst mead makers that make straight meads (no fruit additions), as is tupelo honey. Cleanliness is one of the most important ingredients in home brewing, home wine making, home mead making etc. EVERY book I have ever read has stated this clearly, and personal experience has backed this up. So now you will need to sterilize your fermentation vessel. a Tablespoon of unscented household bleach in a quart of water makes a good cleaning solution. You will likely need a gallon (4 quarts) so use four tablespoons of bleach in a gallon of water, swish this thoroughly around your bucket, or plastic or glass carboy/jug. Dump the cleaning solution out, and rinse with clean tap water thoroughly (no one wants their mead to have a chlorine aftertaste). The same cleaning solution can and should be used to clean any gear you used in any step, from your siphon hose/fish tubing, siphon pump (if you bought one), and pots you use to boil anything in. Spoon used for stirring. Absolutely everything gets sterilized. To boil or not to boil... That is the question. This is a sometimes hotbed issue amongst some mead makers. I usually spit the difference here. But so those reading know there are other views on this, some people just pour the honey in, add water, then add yeast, no heating or boiling at all. Others boil the honey into water for a good long time. Me I heat up about twice as much water (eyeball, don't measure it) as honey (e.g. for a 5 gallons batch, I boil about 2 gallons of honey) add the honey to the heated water, stir it in until it is dissolved, and then I turn the heat off, and that is all. Now time to pour your honey/water mixture into your fermentation vessel. For those who have spent the extra couple of bucks and gotten a food grade bucket, use that for this step. For those who didn't buy a good food grade bucket, pour it into your glass or plastic jug. Add water (use filtered or spring water, the Brita is fine but slow) up to your total volume. Now wait until the water and honey mixture is at room temperature. If you used cold tap water, this won't take too long, if you boiled the honey, it might take a half an hour to an hour. It is crucial that your honey-water mixture is in the 65 to 75 degree ferenheit (15 to 25 degree C). Use a food grade thermometer if you are unsure. Once your honey water mixture is at room temperature, add the yeast. If you have bought a new packet of proper wine making yeast (or ale yeast or whatever), you should be able to just sprinkle it in.... BUT, if your packet of yeast has been sitting around on a shelf, or you have completely cheaped out and used bread yeast, you will get better results if you add your yeast to a glass (about 12 fluid ounces) of comfortably warm water (70 to 80 degree ferenheit) with a tablespoon of sugar or honey dissolved into it. Let the glass of water with sugar and yeast sit for half an hour to an hour and foam up a bit. If you don't see foam, your yeast may be bad and not working. Try giving it some more time, if it never foams, then get some more yeast and retry. If you are using a bucket, cover it with extra wide plastic food wrap. In fact keep the liquid cover at all times whenever you can. Again if you are using a bucket, once you have the plastic wrap on, use a jumbo elastic band (rubber band) or join a bunch of smaller rubber bands together to hold the plastic wrap firmly on the bucket. For those using an air lock, attach that now, those who chose the balloon, time to fit that bad boy over the nozzle of the jug. Put the cover jug or bucket into a dark place (yeast doesn't like light, and no I'm not joking, they're vampiric little weirdos), preferably a dark place that is a steady temperature that isn't too cold or warm (again 65 to 75 degrees Ferenheit) also where the temperature does not fluctuate too much. Walk away.... Do not touch the stuff for at least a week. Maybe check on it daily to ensure your balloon has not popped off, or your plastic wrap is still firmly attach or your airlock is still firmly attached. Actually it is a very good idea to check on it one or twice a day for the first week, because that is when the fermentation is most turbulent and the air pressure is most likely to build up enough to blow your air seal off (whatever you are using). More later....

Okay, the champagne method in brief.... Make your mead as normal, but aim for a dry mead, i.e. using a hydrometer to make sure your initial sugars compose less than about 13% of the total volume. One the mead is finished as per normal, put it into champagne bottles (using champagne bottles is IMPORTANT as normal bottles can't handle the pressure of carbonation), add about a teaspoon of sugar or honey to each bottle. Now an additional feature of most modern American champange (or sparkling wine) bottles, is that they can be corked, or capped (like a beer bottle). After you have capped (which mean you will need a beer capper and caps) the mead in the champagne bottles, let it sit for a week standing up (standing up is important). At this point you will have sparkling mead, but it still should be aged, AND you will have some yeast sludge in the bottom of the bottle. If you are okay with wasting the bottom swig or two of mead and don't mind ignoring the yeast sludge, then you are good... But most people would then use a "riddling" board to slowly tip the bottles over the course of a few weeks (this is a hard one to explain, and would work better with pictures I don't have)... But least to say, a "riddling" board is not a chunk of wood that tells cryptic jokes. Once the bottles have been slowly turned almost upside down over the period of weeks using the riddling board, you would then pop the cap and try to extricate the little bit of sludge which would now be at the top of the bottle (hence the slow turning the bottle upside down). At this point you could cork and wire the bottle shut in that pretty and fancy way that spakling wines and champagnes are done. Ooooh, I was able to find an image of a riddling board online Look here although I prefer the double sided ones on hinges rather than the single ones that are leaned against the wall.... This is a very easy thing to make, even for those with little wood working skills. And a hinged version of the riddling board below. And these few pages from This Google Book explain and diagram out the use of a Riddling board... It is not the whole book, but there are enough pages shown to get the idea.

I have a bottle of commercial sparkling mead in my fridge right now (damn I should have packed that for RF5!)... There are a few ways to carbonate sparkling mead... The traditional Champaigne method (works easiest if you are doing a dry as in not sweet at all mead), or you can use modern kegging systems to force carbonate. There are a few other methods out there that I stumbled across, but those are the main two I know about. And sparkling mead is goooood... Bot the plain and flavoured varieties...

Basically, the most common usage of "Authentic" in the re-enactment world, is there is positive proof to justify said piece of clothing, footwear, hat, other item, etc. Arguments that begin with "You can't prove they didn't..." are the antithesis of "Auithenticity", because the counter to "You can't prove they didn't..." is that neither can "You can't prove they did..." either... Which is a pointless circular argument that never goes anywhere. So basically if there is some proof they did or wore it, cool. No proof, equals not cool (for authenticity minded). Most re-enactors also take this a step further in the direction of, if there is 10 pieces of proof they wore or did this, and one piece they did or wore something else, then the one example is likely a fluke or an anomoly, so go with the 10 sample method or item. Another important facet to authenticity is context... for example... If every peice of proof involving a certain item was only used in a mountainous type of setting, and there was no proof that said item was used, for example at sea.. then said ite would not be cool for a pirate or sailor to use... Pirates and sailors were generally not in the mountains. That is the short simple version... Read this thread on this forum for a bit more in depth Or this article on my web site for another take

Whose that next to Maddogge? I think it is some joker named Hector.... Real shifty character so I hear...

Welcome Sarah! Glad you found your way here!

Thanks to everyone for the B-Day wishes!

Hey Nell, I started a new thread for Mead Making 101.... I'm going to go through all the steps there in order to help you get started, as I imagine there will be plenty of others some day down the road that may have many of the same questions... I'm going to try and keep the discussion here, and keep the Mead Making 101 thread justt about steps... But we;ll see how that works out. Cheers!