Do your research – Show Your Work
Introduction
This paper attempts to assist the reader in developing documentation for evaluation by an East Kingdom Brewer’s Guild panel. A sample of panel documentation is in Appendix A. The paneling categories are defined in Appendix B. A template for panel documentation is in Appendix C
Overview
The EKBG Paneling Rubric contains 6 major headings, each with a set of scores for specific areas of achievement. The maximum achievable score on any panel is 100. These scores are broken down into categories, each with their own maximum score. Points in each category are obtained by how well the submission follows the rubric as shown on the EKBG website.
Panels are used for advancement in the The Ancient and Venerable Order of Brewers, Vintners and Meadmakers of the East Kingdom (East Kingdom Brewer’s Guild). While Roundtables are strictly for evaluating the pros and cons of any given beverage froma sampling perspective.
Panels are a review of your research into a period beverage, and the documentation of that research. The taste of the actual beverage, while important, isn’t especially significant to the overall score of the paneling (taste comes under “workmanship”, which is graded on how closely the beverage resembles what it’s supposed to be). It is important to discuss in your documentation everything about your beverage. You’ve put in a lot of research, show it off.
Panel Areas of Focus
- Documentation (15 pts) – Documentation is part of the total panel entry package; take it seriously. It gives the panelists insight into your processes and procedures, more than the final beverage ever could. Label your entry with your name, the date of the original brewing, the date of bottling, the ABV% if known, and whether any sulfites were used. It could be helpful to list all ingredients on the bottle for awareness of allergens.
- Authenticity (15 pts) – Describe how authentically medieval the recipe is by showing examples of the source(s) used. Did you use period equipment? Show some documentation on it. Did you brew over an open fire or in a hearth? Describe your methods. If you legally can’t perform a process (i.e. distilling, open fires, illegal ingredients), say so, and show the substitutions(redactions) you made.
- Complexity (15 pts) – Show your work here. How closely was the original recipe followed? What and why changes were made. Where were the ingredients sourced. What equipment was used (medieval, modern, or a mix). Can you document the knife, the pot, the pitcher? Do it! Did you start the fire using flint and steel? Say so!
- Exploration (15 pts) – Show your research for every little thing. What other period examples of the use of that odd or main ingredient exist? Mention them. Does your recipe call for “a gallon of water”? What was a gallon in the time period of the beverage? Did you use hops? Which hops were used? How would your medieval brewer have obtained ingredients from foreign sources? Don’t worry about how many pages your documentation grows to. Let the panelists see how deep your rabbit hole goes.
- Workmanship (30 pts) – This is what you were expecting from a paneling. How good is your beverage. Sure it tastes great, but is it supposed to? Does your mead taste like mead? Is it just the right sweetness, too dry, or too bitter? Your grade depends on how closely the entry matches what you are saying it is. The rubric focuses on balance, bouquet, and flavor, but accuracy is also important.
If at all possible, panel something that tastes good. It really helps.
- Aesthetics (10 pts) – This is a controversial area, but don’t overlook it. If possible, bring a period appropriate vessel (with documentation!) to serve the panelists, or at least describe what would be appropriate in your documentation. For the full 10 points you could bring cheese with that wine. Documented, of course.
Appendix A – A Documentation Sample
This is the documentation I used for a paneling of Stepponi.
Brewer: Carrick MacSeáin, COM, OSW
Recipe Source: The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened
Recipe Name: Stepponi
Original Recipe:
TO MAKE STEPPONI
Take a Gallon of Conduit-water, one pound of blew Raisins of the Sun stoned, and half a pound of Sugar. Squeese the juyce of two Limons upon the Raisins and Sugar, and slice the rindes upon them. Boil the water, and pour it so hot upon the ingredients in an earthen pot, and stir them well together. So let it stand twenty four hours. Then put it into bottles (having first let it run through a strainer) and set them in a Cellar or other cool place.
Redaction:
Gallon of Conduit-water – I used water from a local spring. I am using the wine gallon as the measure here. (124.16 oz)
one pound of blew Raisins of the Sun stoned, My interpretation here is that the raisins were soaked for some time so that they swelled up.
half a pound of Sugar.
Squeese the juyce of two Limons upon the Raisins and Sugar, and slice the rindes upon them. Boil the water, and pour it so hot upon the ingredients in an earthen pot, and stir them well together. So let it stand twenty four hours. Then put it into bottles (having first let it run through a strainer) and set them in a Cellar or other cool place.
For the earthen pot, I used a ceramic bean pot.
Recipe
1 Gallon* local spring water (124.16 oz)
1 pound sun dried raisins, soaked and deseeded (stoned) (Deseeded raisins will be basically smashed up a bit)
½ pound sugar
2 lemons
Boil the water
Juice the lemons, saving the rinds.
Slice the rinds of the lemons
In an earthen pot, add the sugar, raisins, and the juice and rinds of the lemons.
Pour the boiling water over the fruit and sugar mixture. Stir well.
Cover and let stand 24 hours
Strain and bottle.
Store in a cool dry place.
Ingredient Sources
Raisins and lemons were sourced from an organic grocer (Mother Earth’s Warehouse, Kingston, NY)
Water was sourced from a local spring on Fly Mountain in Eddyville, NY. The water was boiled over an open fire during the process.
Period equipment
Earthen pot – A ceramic bean pot was used instead of an unglazed pot.
A period knife was used to slice the lemons and chop the raisins.
The liquid was strained through gauze weight linen.
The beverage is to be decanted from a period pitcher into a period drinking vessel. This handmade cup is reminiscent of a style that was common in Europe from not long after the fall of the Roman empire until at least the 17th century.
The handmade jug closely resembles one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art dated to 13th-14th Century France:
Title: Jar
Date: 13th–14th century
Culture: French
Medium: Earthenware with slip decoration
Dimensions: Overall: 6 5/8 x 7 1/8 x 6 1/16 in. (16.8 x 18.1 x 15.4 cm)
Classification: Ceramics
Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number: 17.194.2184
This is the description of the knife from the laurel that sold it to me at Pennsic:
Item: Cook’s Knife ca. 1300
Alloy: 5160
Wood: Boxwood
Finish: Flax Oil (Food-safe Linseed Oil)
This is an unusually historical offering, as close to period details as one can get without completely abandoning modern quality. It’s 1:1 with an extant medieval English cook’s knife dated ca. 1300, and uses the same wood: European boxwood, Buxus sempervirens.
This was the working servants tool, not a fancy piece for the nobility. The very rough polish was done on a water wheel. It is consistent with that • from working knives produced even today by practicing bladesmiths in non-industrialized countries, and is what I believe they would have used on the original knife. The handle wood is.
100-year-old boxwood. The handle is sealed using stand oil (a food-safe linseed oil).
The blade is a whittle-tang format, set using pine resin. The edge is fully sharp but left slightly rough, at a 400-grit finish. Certainly, expert sharpeners could bring a knife to a perfect edge even in the medieval period, but a working cook’s knife like this was less likely to get that sort of attention.
This particular blade was forged from 5160, a fully modern steel. The quality should greatly exceed that of the medieval artifact, but unobtrusively.If you cook medievally and you want to experience the closest approximation to the original tools you can find, this is the knife for you.
Here is a photo if a similar knife that I saw while visiting the British Museum. The caption reads:
Set of knives
Extravagant feasts demonstrated the wealth and status of the host. The two large knives with elaborately decorated handles would have been used by a carver to slice meat from the bone. He would then offer this to his lord on the flat blades. Diners used the smaller knives with sharper points to spear food from a communal vessel. Even at grand feasts most guests came with their own dining utensils and these knives were carried in a leather sheath. In the bottom half of the sheath is the image of a toiling peasant with the French motto ‘J’endure’ (‘1 keep on going’).
What to do next time
Next time I would chop the raisins better and soak them a bit longer. Too much of the water was absorbed by the raisins.
Water and measures
What we think of as a standard imperial gallon is not the same as in period. In period, volumes and weights seemed interchangeable. Beer and Ale gallons were different from wine/oils/dry gallons. I found no reference to which measure was used for water, but since beer and ale were separated from wine, but oils and dry measures were not, I am using the wine gallon as the measure here.
And surely, evil Custome seemeth to have brought up three such distinct measures (and which the foresaid Mr. Wingate hath also expressed to me) For at the Guild-Hall in London, where is generally holden to be the true Standard for these Measures, and so from which all others of the like kind throughout the Kingdome, are usually derived, there are but two such distinct Measures only (as we have been there informed for a certain truth) viz, one for Wines (and so for strong-waters, oiles, and the like) and the other for Ale, Beer, and drie things, as Corn, Coales, Salt and the like; which latter is commonly called the Winchester Measure, and from this are taken the bigger drie Measures, as the half-Peck and Peck, and so on to the Bushell, which is the greatest of our drie Measures [Wyband]
Dr. Wybard in his Tectometry, Page 289, doth suppose the Wine Gallon to contain but 224, or 225 Cubick Inches at the most.[The Mathematical Gazette] However, the modern gallon contains 231 cubic inches.[Olsen]
So a medieval wine gallon is 224/231, or 97%, of a modern gallon. 97% of 128oz is 124.16 oz (3.94 quarts).
Bibliography and Glossary
stoned – deseeded
blew – Old English blāwan, of Germanic origin; related to German blähen ‘blow up, swell’, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin flare ‘blow’.
Digby, Kenelm, The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, The Gutenberg Project, Anne MacDonell(editor)Release Date: August 5, 2005 [EBook #16441]
The Old Foodie: Raisins of all sorts. AGRUMED: Archaeology and history of citrus fruit in the Mediterranean – The history of Citrus in the Low Countries during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age – Publications du Centre Jean Bérard
John Ward, The Young Mathematician’s Guide (12th edition, 1771; ed. pr. 1707). [Per Miss F. A. Yeldham.]
Gleanings Far and Near. (1935). The Mathematical Gazette, 19(236), 340–354. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3606322
Wybard, J. “Setting Forth the Quantities of the Wine and Ale-gallons.” From Tactometria… London: Robert Leybourn. 1650. Web. PDF. Accessed 19 May 2911. <http://www.sizes.com/library/British_law/Wybard1650.pdf>.
D. Y. DeLyser, & W. J. Kasper. (1994). Hopped Beer: The Case for Cultivation. Economic Botany, 48(2), 166–170. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4255609
Olsen, Peter. On the Quarter of Malt and the Hogshead of Beer – Self-published, 2012
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p6K3vqx2S-9rMioKimfab4kcURiFbKoX1RCuMIHr7jM/edit
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Met Cloisters, 99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park. New York, NY 1004 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/465871
____________________ End of Example _________________
Appendix B – EKBG Panel Categories Defined
- Documentation (15 pts): The extent to which the entrant demonstrates knowledge of the beverage’s creation and history in the Middle Ages/Renaissance.
- Authenticity (15 pts): The extent to which the beverage is representative of a Middle Age/Renaissance beverage.
- Complexity (15 pts): The involvement of the procedures that the brewer has undertaken in an effort to simulate the processes used in Middle Age/Renaissance brewing. The level of difficulty of the process used in the creation of the entry.
- Exploration (15 pts): The degree to which the artisan digs into and investigates the example(s) that inspires their work in order to develop their process.
- Workmanship (30 pts): The extent to which the entry matches what we know of the characters of the beverage or style
- Aesthetics (10 pts): The extent to which the entry is presented appropriately and pleasantly, and the drinkability of the beverage itself.
Appendix C – EKBG Panel Documentation Template
Brewer: Your SCA Name
Recipe Source: Where you found the recipe
Recipe Name: Name your creation
Make sure you label the bottle as well. You may have to leave it to be paneled “later”.
Original Recipe:
This is a copy/paste or photo, etc., of the original recipe in its original language. Show what you are working with. Include in this section any historical references or other information that supports your claim that the recipe is from period. Be specific. Show that you did all that research to come up with this creation.
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration
Redaction:
This is where you show your interpretation of the original recipe. If you’ve made any changes or concessions to modern practices, show them here.
Related category: Authenticity.
Recipe
This is the recipe that you ended up following.
Related category: Authenticity, Complexity.
Ingredient Sources
This is where you show where you obtained the ingredients. Did you forage your own berries, or buy them from a shop? Did you get the water from a spring or your tap? Did you treat it in any way?
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
Period processes
This is where you show how you followed period practices, processes, and procedures. Did you use a cow-dung fire? No? Then show why not and say what you did instead, and why.
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
Period equipment
What equipment was used? Did you use an actual 15th century alembic? No? What did you use instead, what was that change necessary and appropriate?
Describe every piece of kit you used.
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
Presentation
Try to avoid bringing your creation in a reused plastic milk jug. A period pitcher and some stoneware or wooden cups may get you those extra points to level up.
The Aesthetics category mentions “comestibles”, so a bit if cheese and bread to go with that wine may be just the thing. Don’t over-do it, though. It’s about the beverage, not the meal that goes with it.
Related category: Aesthetics
What to do next time
What have you learned through the process? What worked and what would you change.
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration, Complexity
Additional Information
Include here any supporting information for your redactions. For example: The recipe calls for a “gallon” of water. What was a gallon at the time the beverage would have been produced? Where did you discover this information?
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration
Bibliography and Glossary
A glossary of terms and a bibliography is suggested here in order to allow additional research into the recipe. This is really more information that shows you’ve done your research. It will also help you in the future when you want to go back and review what you did.
Use whatever reference format you are comfortable with. Try Google Books to get a proper citation for your source materials.
Related category: Exploration
Carrick of Nordenhal 