Boiling honey or not(Re: hist-brewing: mead)

[PBLoomis at aol.com]

    Nick, I agree with your general point completely, but I have to pick nits
with two of your supporting factoids.

In a message dated 09/28/1999 3:43:03 PM EST, njs at mccalla.com writes:
<< dried yeast cultures are a late 19th century invention >>
    The broom over the door of a medieval tavern represented the other broom
inside which was used to collect, dry, and save skimmed yeast from the 
fermenter for use in the next batch.  It wasn't pure, and it wasn't sanitary, 
but I'll bet it was effective or our pragmatic ancestors wouldn't have been 
doing it.

 << until steel was invented in the 1800's >>
    Steel is an alloy of iron and small amounts of carbon.  Sir Henry 
Bessemer developed the first process for producing steel in large batches 
sometime after 1830, but its existence had been known empirically for 
centuries.  The Japanese were making folded and layered steel swords by the 
1200s, and the swordmakers of Damascus were earlier than that.
    The roots of our technologies of today reach far into the past, 
encompassing
the efforts of generations of unsung geniuses.
    "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood upon the 
shoulders of giants."   -- Newton

    In joy and service,
    Scotti

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send email to majordomo at pbm.com containing
the words "unsubscribe hist-brewing" (or unsubscribe hist-brewing-digest, if
you get the digest.) To contact a human about problems, send mail to
owner-hist-brewing at pbm.com