The Compleat Meadmaker : Home Production of Honey Wine From Your First Batch to Award-winning Fruit and Herb Variations Paperback – June 9, 2003

This book is a large snap shot of how to make honey wine (mead). (Mead was the original party drink of the Vikings and Anglo Saxons while beer was basically used like water with just barely enough alcohol in it to make the water safe to drink.) This book covers just about everything and the authors well-rounded education shines through in every well-spoken and educational chapter.This is the "Betty Crocker Cookbook" of mead making... No it doesn't have tons and tons of recipes but it does have a fair number of them and tons of ideas to create your own recipes. The book covers everything from how much honey and of what kind to use, spices, fruits, sanitation and a good history of mead and chapters on honey and a bit of general Chemistry.I have found the "No Heat" method of mead making (as explained in the book) to be simple and produce wonderful results.My own notes in addition to the book are as follows. Although the book walks you through the mead making process in great detail the one error is the book doesn't tell you how to make your mead taste like mead in the chapters that explain how to START making mead. The process as the book describes converts almost all the honey to alcohol but leave few sugars to even taste like mead. The actual answer to this problem can be found in the index under sweetening but that's in a different section.The short version is convert the honey to alcohol, get fermentation to finish and then add more honey or whatever juice to sweeten it and get the flavor to suit your taste... the books instructions are more complete than mine but keep in mind you will have to look up that section it is not in the section for beginners.Lastly there is an orange red airtight cover for glass carboys that has two holes, the central hole is obviously for a racking cane to drain liquid but there are no instructions for what the other hole is for... The other hole is to blow into in order to create air pressure that starts the racking process (siphoning).This doesnt seem to be covered anywere even though theres no way for a novice to know it...The book is great overall and well worth the price.

I found this to be a thoughtful and well thought-out book which gives a wealth of information on mead making and each step in the process. Included are details on selecting and preparing yeast, beekeeping, fermentation vessels, and on and on.This is a book for someone that either wants to get a good grasp of the subject before doing a deep dive, or someone else who has dabbled in mead making for a couple of years, and would now like to understand what the heck they are doing (like me!).This is one of the few books I've found where sulfites are not used, and I find that to be a refreshing change. We don't need to ingest more chemicals, which are basically added to everything we eat. By using natural honey and organic ingredients (and good sanitation practices), we can actually make, by ourselves, delicious and wholesome beverages that would be difficult to purchase. The other book I've found that doesn't just pour on the sulfites at every opportunity is "Make Mead Like A Viking" by Jereme Zimmerman.Another reviewer complained about the "meandering" content of this book and the lack of recipes. I have many books on mead, and this is basically the only one where the author has years of experience backing up his theories and is understandable; this is more of an encyclopedia/collection of essays. As far as the recipes go, no, there are not that many in this book, but that's not why I bought it. I have other books(such as "Big Book of Mead Recipes" by Robert Ratliff) which has a small initial section on the background of mead, how to make mead, followed by the remainder of the book (with 60+ recipes). Also, you can find a ton of recipes all over the internet, but I have not found many (if any) sites with all the background this author provides.

Ken Schramm presents a clear, logical guide to the art and science of mead-making, presenting traditional methodology and more recently developed techniques (such as no-boil or low temp processing) in a nice balance. While there is an introduction to the history of mead, it is not a long, drawn-out affair as in many texts, focusing more on considerations that prompted the advancement of technique. Since you are reading this book with an eye towards creating your own mead, this will probably be more useful to you than an obtuse history lesson.Coming more from a winemaking background, Ken's discussion on the use of sulphites in mead was the most helpful item to me personally- with friends and family members sensitive to sulphites, it hadn't occurred to me that the inherent properties of honey could be used to minimize or even eliminate their use under certain circumstances. For me, this alone was worth the price of admission.Also included is a fairly extensive guide to the additions of fruits and spices, with good advice on creating and blending your own creations, and some good "baseline" recipes to get you going, as well as a good discussion on sanitation practices.

Great book. Love the history of mead and the ideas to make different types of mead.But sometimes I know I have seen a specific recipe or need to remember what type of yeast to use in a certain mead or cyser and it takes forever to find the recipe I was using.I have gone to coded sticky tape with blue for recipes, and that helps.

Well written. Interesting information.Clear explanations.Book is appropriate for all levels. Simple recipes for beginners and then goes on to more advanced recipes.