being a newbie myself to both brewing and mead making i think i would tell you what most have told me so far......read....read...read.....lol.....
i have also been visiting a site
www.gotmead.com that is super as well as looking through this section of this forum.
I have started with a basic cyser.....here is the recipe:
Viking Thunders Cinnfull Cysyer:
4 cinn sticks
3 lbs apiary fresh clover honey
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
fill 1 gallon with organic tree of life apple juice
red star cote de blanc(1 packet)
heated apple juice enough to mix in honey, added everything else and shook the crap out of it for several minutes.
sg 1.12 might have still beem a hair above room temp
(C&P from
www.gotmead.com)
i found the recipe to be a bit dry though it is still is the clearing stages. I racked off the dead cells to remove risk of imparting bad flavors.......it fermented out a bit dryer then i like so i back sweetened with about 2.5 oz of honey...next time ill use half that.
I find the mead to be a bit less complex in the procedures but again i am only a newbie to this as well.
I just ordered some sweet mead yeast (WLP720) from white labs and a dry mead yeast (not sure of the number) but both are liquid yeast specimens from white labs. looking to make a batch of sweet mead (5 gallons) and after it completes fermetation (approx 2 months) ill rack off to 1 gallon batches and flavor in the secondaries. there is a great little video on basic brewing .com
view in this order:
this is the mead making video:
http://img670.libsyn.com/img670/62877362cf1c885def0fa2b6ab4b7dfe/45b579ea/9138/4011/bbv04-06.mov
this is the flavoring video:
http://img668.libsyn.com/img668/e4d9241161723a8ef3f9ecae2c1f2cf5/45b57a2e/3769/4011/bbv06-02-06.mov
this is the last update video:
http://cache.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbv12-27-06.mov
the whole video library:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/radio/index.php?page=video
good luck, hope this helps
anthony