hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0276.txt

Episode: 276
Title: HPR0276: ANCIENT ORANGE MEAD
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0276/hpr0276.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 15:25:18

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we will see,
Hello, my name is Lost in Bronx.
Today I'm going to talk to you about making meat at home.
It's simple to do and it's fun.
Remember fun?
I'm not sure everyone does.
But after a few glasses of homemade meat, it'll all come back to you.
What exactly is made?
Well, basically, meat is fermented honey water.
That is to say, it's an alcoholic beverage that has been made from honey.
The United States government classifies it as a type of wine.
There are many types of meats going by many different names.
They can be cloyingly sweet or they can be made bone-dried depending on how it is that they're done.
The history and taxonomy of it are confusing and often they're the source of arguments for people who are inclined to argue about such things.
Meat has an extensive history.
I won't go into it now because it could truly amount to a lifetime study all on its own.
And like almost everything else made, it's controversial.
Let's clear up one thing, though, because I've met with one particular piece of ignorance time.
And again, meat is not moonshine.
Neither is wine, neither is beer.
Fermented beverages are made with sugar, water, and yeast.
That's where the alcohol comes from.
After that, it can be distilled into liquors of higher alcohol percentages, the best of which are sublime,
and the worst of which are moonshine of various stripes.
Meat is not a distilled beverage.
Once it is distilled, it is meat brandy, not meat.
Just as whiskey is not beer anymore and brandy is not wine anymore after distillation.
Now, making wines and beers for home use is legal in the United States.
But it isn't legal everywhere in the world.
So I advise you to be aware of your local beverage making laws and to proceed according to your will,
with all due care and subtlety, if required.
At any rate, our recipe here today is an easy one.
It is a slight variation on one that was developed by a fine gentleman named Joe Madioli,
who has had an extensive personal history with me.
I've made this many times myself.
It has two distinct advantages as I see them.
One, perfect recipe for beginners and lazy people like myself.
And two, it's nearly foolproof.
I say nearly because some people simply insist on complicating things.
Now this recipe is simple, but it was not simple for Joe to devise.
It took him years to put it together.
The recipe is called Joe's Ancient Orange Cinnamon and Clove Meat,
or just Ancient Orange for short.
The orange part comes fact that we will use an orange in this.
And the ancient part is from the fact that this style of recipe is very old.
People were making and enjoying similar meats to this hundreds,
even thousands of years ago, and yes, I said thousands.
Now first, I'll talk about the equipment you'll need,
and then I'll talk about the ingredients.
For equipment, you will need an empty four-liter wine jug.
Keep the cap that came with it. We'll need it.
In the United States, you want to get a four-liter jug of Carlo Rossi wine.
This wine comes in a wide range of styles,
each one of them comfortably mediocre.
They're not too bad, really.
If your wine palette is refined, though,
you can make a bunch of wine coolers with it,
or simply pour it down the drain.
It's the jug we're after. The wine is incidental.
In other countries, where the metric system is in place,
finding a four-liter jug is probably not too hard.
If you can only find a gallon size,
or an imperial gallon, then go with that.
It'll be okay in the end.
Next, we either want a water lock,
which is an inexpensive, though specialized piece of fermenting equipment,
along with a drilled cork or stopper to put it in,
or, in order to do the same job,
a cork or rubber stopper,
undrilled, to fit the mouth of the jug,
and I'll tell you how to do that part of a moment.
The water lock is optimum, but if you're new to this,
you won't have one on hand.
If you decide you like to make your own hooch,
it should be your very next purchase.
It's a plastic doohickey that fits into a stopper
or cork with a hole drilled through it.
You then put the cork into the top of the jug,
and put a little water into the water lock.
Fermenting need makes lots and lots of bubbles.
CO2, which is a byproduct of the fermentation process.
A water lock allows this guest to escape
without any outside air getting in.
Outside air brings oxygen and microbes.
We only want the oxygen and microbes that we put in,
not what Mother Nature would put in.
Mother Nature invented fermentation,
but she doesn't like anyone else doing it.
She'll spoil your party if you let her,
so don't invite her to it.
Now, I mentioned using an ordinary cork or rubber stopper
without a hole in it in order to do the same job as the water lock.
This requires you to pay more attention to the meat
as it's fermenting, but it does work pretty well.
Basically, after you have your ingredients in the jug
and they are mixed up nicely,
you wet the cork and put it in the jug mouth lightly.
Just set it in there.
Let gravity do the work.
Once fermentation begins, the CO2 produced
makes for positive pressure inside,
and you'll see bubbles forming around the edge of the cork
where it meets the jug,
and you might even see the cork moving up and down a little bit
if you look closely enough.
Now, I cannot stress this highly enough.
If you go this route with the undrild cork or stopper,
do not push the cork down tightly,
set it in there lightly,
and check that it is still loose twice a day,
every that you see activity in that jug.
During fermentation, the amount of gas produced by the yeast
as they eat the sugars inside the jug is staggering.
Pressure in a closed primary fermenter will build up rapidly
and burst the container.
And since we're talking about a glass container,
we are, in fact, talking about a bottle bomb.
Not the sort of thing you want on your kitchen counter.
Like, cooking at a stove, this is not at all dangerous
if you watch what you're doing.
Now, a water lock allows you to set it and forget it.
No chance of a bottle bomb there,
unless the water lock becomes clogged.
A cork or stopper does not allow this luxury.
It is not labor required for this, it is regular attention.
Twice a day, maybe morning and evening,
taking up at most about 10 seconds of your time.
And there'll only be real activity in the jug
for two to three weeks anyway, not that big a deal.
Another route some people go is to put a piece of paper towel
or thin cloth on the mouth of the jug
and then set the solid cork in there.
In theory, the paper or cloth will allow gases
to escape without the cork ever becoming tightly set.
In practice, you'll have to check it anyway.
So, you know, I wonder why bother.
I mean, I've used both these successfully
before I had access to a water lock.
You'll want to sterilize the cloth or paper
you use to kill any micro critters in there.
A minute or two in the boil is fine.
We're not doing surgery here.
Now, finally, if corks or stoppers are hard to come by
or if they sound scary,
here's an old hippy technique.
Get a balloon.
Take a pin and poke one single tiny hole in it right at the top.
Wash the balloon out completely, getting rid of any powder in it.
Sanitize it, which I'll get to in a moment.
Then stretch this over the mouth of the jug
when it's time to attach the air lock.
Escaping gases will start to fill the balloon
and then stretch open the hole just a bit
and allow the gases to escape.
When this pressure wanes, the hole will close on itself again.
I've never used this technique myself
but I've heard happy anecdotes about it.
You might want to wrap a rubber band around the neck and balloon
just to keep it in place.
This sort of lock and theory requires no maintenance,
but keep half an eye on it anyway.
Next, you'll want a measuring cup,
maybe a small funnel and a sharp knife.
You will also need a small hose
for transferring the finished bead
from the jug into other bottles.
If you have to buy one, then go to the hardware store
and look for a clear vinyl hose.
You will be siphoning the bead through this
and three to four feet or 90 to 120 centimeters
or so is optimum.
Hose like this is cheap and it will last a long time.
Finally, a bucket and some bleach comes in handy too
but in a pinch we can do without just keep everything clean
and that's it, an equipment.
Next are the ingredients.
You may well have these around in your kitchen already.
But if not, you're looking at a small investment
with the honey being by far your biggest expense.
You start off with three and a half pounds of honey.
That's 1.5 kilograms.
That tends to work out to be a little over four and one-half cups
or like, I don't know, 1100 milliliters,
something like that.
Clover honey is an easy choice for this
but any kind of cheap supermarket honey will do.
No need to buy the gourmet stuff for this recipe.
It'll still be good and you don't want to spend a lot of money.
Next you'll want one large orange.
The large oranges are fine as our naval or juice oranges
but clementines and or tangerines and the like are too small.
If all you have are small fruits, then just use two.
Next you'll need some raisins.
Only a small handful, 25 or 30, if you're counting.
Next you'll want a cinnamon stick, one big one or two small ones.
If you can't get a hold of a cinnamon stick, then one teaspoon
of ground cinnamon will do the trick as well.
That would be what, 5 milliliters.
Next you want two whole cloves.
If they're really strong and fresh, you could probably get by with one.
A little cloves go a long way.
I ruined a ham once that way.
Don't do it to your meat.
Now, optionally you can add a pinch of both nutmeg and all spice.
These are not vital at all and you only want a little in there
but they can be nice.
Next we want one packet or sachet as they're known of red yeast.
Fleischmins, available in the United States pretty much everywhere,
is the preferred brand, but red star works just fine as do a wide range
of other bread yeasts available around the world.
One note though, you do not want to buy a brand of yeast
that is advertised as being rapid rise.
Fleischmins has a style like this as do many of the others.
It will say rapid rise or something very so right on the package
in big letters.
If you absolutely have no other choice then give it a shot.
Otherwise pass it over.
Regular, plain old bread yeast is what you want.
And don't be a cheap ask.
Go out and buy some new yeast.
Don't use that old stuff you found in the back of the cupboard.
If you only have access to bulk yeast though,
then you're going to want to use one teaspoon that is five milliliters
or specifically five grams worth.
Finally, you'll need water enough to fill the jug most of the way.
Okay, here's the procedure.
Assuming you're using the bleach,
take about two or three tablespoons worth,
10 to 15 milliliters and pour it into the jug.
We'll fill this right up to the very top with water and put it aside.
Next, take a bucket and water.
Do the same with the bleach and drop in your funnel and knife
and juglets.
I found that the bleach smell can be hard to remove from cork.
If you have a rubber stopper, however,
it should be fine to put it in there.
Just make sure the cork is as clean as possible.
Some people drop them in boiling water for a minute or two.
You can.
I don't tend to, but I'm a lazy slob so don't go by me.
The purpose of the bleach bath, of course,
is just to sanitize the equipment.
If your tap water is hot,
at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit,
or 71 degrees centigrade,
coming out of the faucet,
then you really don't have to worry about the bleach
for basically clean equipment.
Rinse them in that kind of heat and you'll be fine.
Our ancestors didn't even do that much half the time,
and well, there were a bunch of alcohol,
because if archaeologists and anthropologists can be believed,
they must have been doing something, right?
Let any soaking equipment sit for at least a half hour,
then rinse it all off until you can no longer smell the bleach.
Take your time.
Once it's sanitized and free of that smell,
you're ready to start.
But don't leave any bleach in there.
It will kill your yeast.
Now, pour the honey carefully into the jug.
If you have a steady hand, this might be easy.
Otherwise, save your sanity and your honey and use the funnel.
Next, wash the orange really out,
getting off as much of the pesticides as you can manage.
If your genes mutate later, remember I warned you.
Now, use the knife and slice the orange into eight,
more or less equal pieces,
and then cram them into the jug, peels and all.
The juice in the orange adds flavor and a little more sugar,
while the peel adds primarily flavor and bitterness
to offset the sweetness.
In beer, they use hops for this sort of thing.
We could use them here too, but well, that would be a different recipe.
And don't worry about getting the orange chunks out of the jug later,
when you're all done.
They kind of soften up during fermentation,
and you can get them out fairly easily.
Also, if you have to use two small oranges,
cut them each into quarters.
You want eight total pieces.
Too many slices means too much of the orange pith is exposed to the need,
and that is where the bitterness comes from.
Okay, now take your little raisins and drop them in as well.
Now that's easy enough.
Now drop in the cinnamon, stick in the cloves,
and the other spices if you're using them.
Okay, next, add enough room temperature water,
maybe a little warmer,
to bring up the level,
to just below where the round part of the jug at the top starts to taper in.
I'm not talking about the neck,
but rather the rounded top of the container part below the neck.
That should leave you a couple of inches of empty space.
Firmamentation creates lots of bubbles and crud at the top there,
and you want to leave a little bit of head space to keep it from bubbling over.
By the by, should that ever happen to you?
Just clean it all up,
recoric or rewater lock it, and keep going.
A very active fermentation is a good sign.
Now then, you've got the jug filled up.
Screw the cap that came with the jug back on top.
Do it tightly.
Take the jug up carefully and start shaking it.
Shake well.
Shake it until your arms get tired.
Shake it until the honey completely dissolves.
Do not stop until at least that much is accomplished.
You can take as many breaks as you need,
if your upper arm strength isn't what it used to be.
Don't drop it, though.
That's a dangerous mess to clean up.
You could use a long thing to stir it up in there,
like a plastic chopstick or something,
but honestly, it'll take a lot longer
and it won't oxygenate the water anywhere near as well.
And yes, we do want oxygen in there at the start.
The more, the better.
But not afterwards.
There are reasons for this, but just take my word for it at this point.
Alright, it is now time to put the yeast in.
Unscrew the cap, tear open the sachet,
and carefully pour the dried yeast into the jug.
Put the cap back on again, tightly.
Shake the jug again to mix the yeast up.
A minute or so is fine.
Now, finally, unscrew the cap and put it aside for washing.
Save it for your next batch,
because after you drink this, you will want to make another batch.
It goes fast.
Take your waterlock, if you have one,
or your wet cork, if that's what you're using,
and put it into the mouth of the jug.
A waterlock in a drilled cork gets jammed in tight.
A solid cork does not.
Remember this, and you'll live a long, shrapnel-free life.
Now comes the hardest part of all.
Waiting.
This meat is considered to be a very fast one,
even so you're looking at a two-and-a-half,
two-three-and-a-half-month commitment.
If you have a waterlock on the jug,
that means you have to check the water level in the lock,
maybe, I don't know, three or four times along the way.
Every couple of days.
And that's it until it's all done.
But if you're using a solid cork,
well, I hope I've whipped that horse well enough
by now that you know what you have to do.
The meat will begin fermenting,
often within a few minutes or at the very most within a day.
If you don't see any action within a day or so
with this kind of yeast,
something went wrong.
Try buying new yeast and add in again.
If that doesn't work, well,
then it failed miserably,
and you should dump this mess and try again,
or, I don't know, buy your booze from now on.
This is too hard for you.
But it won't fail, so don't worry.
The fermentation process is an active thing.
Lots of bubbles, lots of foam,
lots of ugly cred floating to the top
and settling to the bottom.
The must, which is what we call fermenting meats and wines,
will become an opaque brownish orange color,
kind of nasty looking.
But don't let that fool you.
Your finished meat will be a beautiful golden color.
Eventually, the raisins will rehydrate
and begin to look like little grapes again.
The cinnamon stick will swell up some, as will the cloves.
There will be bubbles and gas galore.
If you have a water lock on this thing,
you can have weeks of fun watching bubbles go up through it.
It's better than a lava lamp.
But at some point, the fermentation will slow down
and then finally, up.
Continue to watch it.
Check the water level in your water lock.
Check the moisture and looseness of your solid cork.
Wait for it.
Bit by bit.
It will begin to clear all on its own.
The fruit and spices and yeast will eventually settle to the bottom.
The remaining clear, beautifully golden liquid on top
is your finished meat.
But you have to get it out of there
without kicking up too much of the yeast again.
And that's where your vinyl hose comes in.
You want to sanitize both it and a couple of bottles
into which you'll put your meat,
using the method I outlined before.
Make sure you get the inside of the hose sanitized
as well as the outside.
Rinse it all out until you don't smell the bleach anymore.
Take your time.
Make sure your jug is on a counter or table.
Place your sanitized bottles on the floor below.
We are going to be siphoning the meat
and this height difference is vital.
Some people sanitize their mouths at this point
by swishing brandy or some other type of hard liquor
around in there before swallowing.
You can.
It makes sense.
And it can steady your hand at a crucial time.
But, well, to be honest, I've done it both ways.
That is with a booze wash and without one.
And I've never had a problem with infected meat in the bottle.
My recommendation, though, for the first timer,
drink the booze just a shot's worth.
Swish it around, swallow.
At the least, it'll make you feel better.
And I know none of you are stupid enough to do this.
But don't you scope or listerine
or some other kind of mop wash for this job, please.
Your meat will taste of it.
Now, carefully.
Remove the airlock or solid cork from the jug.
And even more carefully,
lower for one end of the hose into the jug
until it's about 1.5 inch or 1.27 centimeters
above the debris at the bottom.
Do your very best not to kick up the yeast.
Hold it there steadily.
Now, take the other end of the hose into your mouth
and suck on it like a straw until the meat comes up.
Make sure you're hovering over the top of the bottle
you intend to fill.
In a single dexterious move,
quickly take the hose out of your mouth
just before the level of meat reaches you
and spill it all over the floor as you frantically scrambled
to get the hose into the mouth of the bottle.
Don't worry about it.
It happens to everyone.
The spillage on the floor is an offering to the ancient Greek God
backus who, before he was known as the God of wine,
was in fact the God of meat.
So you're filling the bottle.
You want to get it within an inch or so from the top.
Then pinch the vinyl hose hard,
cutting off the flow of meat,
and transfer the hose to the next bottle and continue.
This takes some practice.
There's more than a little chance of having more spillage here.
Again, don't worry, it happens to us all.
You can use another large jug or some wine bottles
or something even smaller.
It doesn't really matter.
At some point or other,
you'll get to the bottom of the fermentation jug
where all the crap is.
And yet, there will still be good meat down there
that you can't get to.
Don't worry about it.
Take your funnel,
put it on a small bottle like a soda bottle or something,
and carefully pour the last of the meat
out of the jug into it.
Avoid falling cloves or raisins.
Now, these dregs will be cloudy
and unappetizing looking in your little bottle,
but that's okay.
Cap or cork the bottle and put it in the fridge.
Eventually, this meat will clear again,
and you can siphon or simply pour off a nice glassful.
Think of it as a parting treat from a job well done.
That bottle will have to sit,
but the rest of your meat is ready to drink right away
or at the very least after a little bit of chilling.
It only gets better with time
and makes a marvelous holiday drink,
so if you can put a bottle up for a few months,
you'll definitely be rewarded for your patience.
It will be sweet.
You can expect a nice balance of orange flavor
with the spices,
but it will be surprisingly smooth.
There might be some bitter piffiness going on.
Some people have more than others in that regard.
You can minimize that by using an orange with a thin rind.
The final alcohol level will be somewhere around 10%,
maybe a little less, maybe more.
And that, as they say, is that.
This recipe breaks most of the so-called rules of meat making,
but that's okay.
There's really only one rule that matters.
Have fun and enjoy what you make.
If you've ever had meat before,
especially commercially produced meat,
this will be better.
Not necessarily because it's better meat,
but expressly because you made it.
These things matter.
Now I know this was long,
and it might have seemed complicated,
so let me break it down for you.
You get a jug,
you add your ingredients to it,
you wait, you siphon,
you enjoy.
Short of prison wine made in a toilet,
you will never find an easier recipe than this.
If you do it once, you'll want to do it again.
And brothers, sisters,
that's a good thing.
I want to thank a couple of guys from the Linux Cranks IRC
who suggested I do this recording.
I say I want to thank them,
but I don't remember who they were.
They will,
and don't know I'm grateful,
and that's really what matters, I guess.
I'll put the recipe up in the show notes,
so you'll have something to refer to.
Thank you for listening.
I hope you enjoyed it,
and more than that,
I hope you enjoy your meat.
Thank you for listening to Hack with Public Radio,
HPR is sponsored by Pharaoh.net,
so head on over to C-A-R-O-DOT-N-C for all of us needs.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.