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Bobbaugh3

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anyone have any books to expand ones knowledge on mead? I have looked into “make mead like a Viking” and I might pull the trigger.. seems current and there is a bit about wild fermentation in there.
 
Hi Bobbaugh3 - and welcome. The "classics" include Steve Piatz' The Complete Guide to Making Mead and Ken Schramm's The Compleat MeadMaker (now a little dated).

Thank you! I will look into these, I want to try to make a quick mead for October/November and also a cider for Fall as well.

Those will probably help me greatly!
 
A quick mead? I am not sure that either Schramm or Piatz are the help you seek. For a quick mead you could do worse than check out Mary Izett's Speed Brewing. (Written just last year or the year before) . Most books on mead making assume that your mead will be very similar to either a wine (12% ABV ) or a desert wine (about 16% ABV or higher) and the higher the abv the longer a wine or mead takes for all the elements to integrate and be "drinkable". And if your protocol is poor that might mean "aging" the mead for years. If by quick mead you mean a "short mead" (low ABV) or an "hydromel" these can very delicious in about about 4 weeks.

Izett's approach is to aim for meads that are closer to 5-7 % ABV (so that's about 1 pound to 1.5 pounds of honey in every gallon of must). But note that for all intents and purposes all the flavor (unless you are adding fruits or spices - and there is a skill involved in such additions if only to be able to determine whether you add these to the primary or use the alcohol in the secondary to extract more of the flavor - and, indeed, how much do you add).. ) all the flavor is coming from the honey and so the less honey you add the less flavor there can be in the mead.

An alternative "quick mead" is one made by Bray Dennard (he goes by the moniker of "loveofrose") which he calls a BOMM, and this is also ready in about 4 weeks but this is largely because his protocol is solid and he uses quite specific yeasts that he has tested and argues ferment honey "clean".
 
And Groennfell (?) Meadery has some recipes for low ABV meads that are ready in a month. They look easy enough but are fermented at a higher temp than usual

Awesome! Thanks for the info, definitely looking into it
 
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