Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

If you have been following along with this blog you probably know that I have been making a lot of mead. I and some business partners have been developing it with the intention of making a commercial meadery. So we have been doing a lot of experimenting with meads and so far that has been a lot of interesting (and delicious) work. 

Mead does take time and it will probably be two years before our first bottles of mead hit the market so to fill the gap in time between then and now we are launching a line of products for home brewers and mead makers. The first product is now officially launched and it is the Renaissance Carboy Cover.

If you brew your own beverages you understand the importance of keeping it protected against the adverse affects of light. These carboy covers will help you do this. They come in four different colors and fit carboys between the sizes of 5 and 6.5 gallons. 

The covers have some nice design elements. They are made of water-resistant nylon so are very easy to clean. They have an elastic band at the bottom so you can place them on your carboy without any lifting and they have a drawstring at the top for a snug fit around the neck. They fit carboys ranging from five to six and a half gallons in size.

If you are curious about the covers or would like to learn more visit the Renaissance Mead Website.

A lot of people are really interested in siege engines, catapults, trebuchets and the like, and yesterday I spent some time doing a litle research and a little bit of drawing. If you are interested in siege engines you might want to take a look at what I did.

Siege Engines are a good example of a very early arms race and they developed from bows into crossbows then into something called the Gastraphetes (belly bow). And of course there is the Mangonel and Onager. Anyhoo, I have outlined this timelne of development showing the major improvements and changes that were made. I also have included drawings I made that show these major types of siege engines. Here is the article: The Development and Evolution of the Catapult

About Drawing Catapults: I also figured that since I have these nice drawings on catapults and various siege engines it would be a great addition for my fantasy art school. So using the artwork I made I did up a lesson on drawing catapults and added it to the art school. If you want to  learn how to draw catapults and siege engines you might want to take a look here: Fantasy Art School Home Page (The Catapult lesson is one of the first ones on the page)

I have been working on two new catapults. They are the Goblin (Small one) and the Ogre (large one). The Ogre is two feet long with a three foot throwing arm and the Goblin is ten inches long.

I will be posting complete tutorials on these onto my website in the coming days and I am designing the goblin for mass production so eventually I will be selling goblins as a kit.

The Ogre is kind of interesting in that it only took me two hours to make and it uses 2×3’s and a bungee cord. It’s not something that should be used indoors.

The Goblin has some nice little features about it like an system for adjusting the tension so you can get various strength settings. Developing a project like this for use as a product has been a fun experience for me because there it takes a lot of work to develop a product that is functional, fun and yet cost effective.

Here is a closer look at the goblin catapult:

I do have several projects already posted to my catapult subsite including a really small popsicle stick catapult and a mid-sized catapult called The Table Top Troll. Catapult Crazy . And here is my youtube video showing the Goblin and the Ogre

I have just started twelve new batches of Mead (the front two rows in the picture).

I have been reall wanting to get a good handle on the different types of yeasts and how they affect both the taste of mead and the fermenting cycle so what I did is make all of the variables identical including temperature, honey, water, sanitation and everything else except for the yeast. So, now I will be able to track comparatively speaking how each type of yeast develops, how long they take and how they taste.

It should be an interesting experiment that will yield some good results. If there is no noticeable difference between many of the batches I will be able to identify which type of yeast matures into a good mead the fastest.

Interesting Notes within the first couple of days. Some of the yeast are off to a great start and some are slower. Some yeast have already started quite a nice leeds accumulation and some have not. There is also a marked difference in color across the various batches.

Some info:

• Type of honey used is wildflower directly from an apiary.
• All Equipment sanitized using Easy Clean
• Must santized with Potassium Metabisulfate and allowed to sit for 24 Hours
• After waiting period yeast energizer and nutrient added, then yeast pitched

Lots more mead making stuff on my website here

There is an interesting project going on in Colorado and it is still in the early stages of development.

An outfit called Middle Age Productions is trying to bring to reality an authentic middle ages castle and village and use it as a real fairground and tourist attraction. Think of it as something Disney would make -where you are fully immersed in the experience.

It seems like a really cool project and they have a lot of great ideas - even some plans and blueprints. What they are envisioning is a permanent, and authentic, medieval faire ground which I think is a really great idea. If you have ever been to a medieval faire you know what I mean by this. This type of faire ground is usually, in my experience, a temporary thing that gets set up for a few months in the summer or fall and then kind of disappears.

Having a permanent, year round, and authentic structure would be a great tourist attraction. But I do have some suggestions for them.  First off they should contact Medieval Manor corporate Headquarters. A Medieval Manor franchise would be a great addition to their site. Secondly I think they should move it out of Colorado. No offense to the state but there are just too many cold months in the year out there. The attraction is going to spend way too much time covered in snow. I just can’t picture the king on skis. (maybe the jester)

Anyhoo, I really shouldn’t criticize, after all how far am I in my plans to build a medieval castle? Theyr’e at least doing it!

The name of the company is Medieval World USA and you can check on what they are doing and learn more about the project at their website Medievalworld.us