(translated by u/ralfv)
New to these? Read the introduction first: it explains what is left out on purpose and what the yeast of the time could do.
Source: House and medical book, Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Donaueschingen 792, fol. 81v, c. 1450 (Alemannic, western Lake Constance region).
Language: Early New High German (Alemannic), Latin heading
Style: Traditional
Medonem faciendo [On making mead].
If you want to make good noble mead, take one som of honey and two som of water, and boil the som of honey very well, for as long as one can properly skim a pot. And when it begins to boil, stir it with the shovel so that it does not boil over. But if you cannot stop it boiling over that way, pour half a dish of water into it.
And when it is about to boil up, take a dish that is fixed to a stick, and skim it really well and deftly, so that the scum does not boil back in. And skim it until it becomes clear. Then take a stick and dip it into the mead in the kettle, and cut a notch in the stick. And let it boil until a third has boiled away. So from one som of honey you should get two som of mead.
When it has been boiled, pour it into a binte and let it get cold. Then pour it into a cask. If mead or cherry wine was in the cask before, rinse it with cold water before closing it. But if wine was in it, heat a kettle of boiling water, pour it into the cask, and leave it in there overnight; and roll the cask about with the water, and afterwards rinse it with cold water. Then you have good mead.
And the scum, too, you should boil down by a third, and strain it, and put it in as well. Then that also becomes good. – dixit.
Translation: fyndling.de (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). fyndling.de also made the transcription of the original-language text, from the facsimile of the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe (Public Domain Mark 1.0). The transcription is not reproduced on this page; you can read it next to the manuscript scan via the link below.
Original scan and transcription: fyndling.de/rezepte/d792-001. German-language site; Google Translate works well for reading it.