Customer Reviews

The Compleat Meadmaker : Home Production of Honey Wine From Your First Batch to Award-winning Fruit and Herb Variations

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When I saw the title, my first thought was, "he spelled `complete' wrong." Then I thought about it. Mead is an ancient brew - arguably the first fermented beverage - so why not use an ancient spelling of the word? It fits.

Ken Schramm has done for meadmaking what Jon Iverson, Terry Garey and Daniel Pambianchi have done for winemaking - written a book that will serve the home craft with authority for years to come. Indeed, it was a joy to read. From the historical asides to the award-winning recipes, this book was meant to educate and use. The hardest part was resisting the temptation to put it down and run out to buy some honey.

"Mead, once considered far superior to both wine and beer, fell into obscurity as honey became scarce and expensive, and was never reclaimed from the nobility's vault in which it was laid. Through the work of many people and by virtue of the quality of the beverage itself, mead is making a comeback. This book endeavors to push that comeback along." Thus, quite succinctly, Ken Schramm lays out the gauntlet he chose to run. In my judgement, he succeeded admirably.

The book is divided into four parts. These are Background, Process, Ingredients, and Recipes, followed by appendices, glossary, bibliography, and a very useful index.

Background: I am an historian by education. As such, I am drawn to historical accounts that support my hobbies. So it was with great delight that I read in the opening chapter a fairly good argument for mead claiming the title of oldest fermentable beverage. Indeed, the whole first chapter is about the history of mead, from accidental discovery by paleolithic or neolithic man to the great mead traditions of ancient Egypt, Europe, and wherever sailors sailed. While some would choose to skip this discussion, I hope the number would not be too large. There is serious food for thought here. A very short second chapter defines the styles of mead. I found this chapter to be too short, but I am a fan of nomenclature.

Process: Four chapters compose this portion. "Changing Honey into Wine" goes beyond tradition, of which mead is literally soaked, to bring the craft into the scientific era and improve it generally. The author uses a medium-sweet, orange-blossom mead recipe to walk the reader through the equipment, additives and processes of making mead generally. "Beyond the Basics" looks at the heat and non-heat methods of integrating honey, but also looks at sparkling mead, more equipment, and more additives. "Yeast and Fermentation" covers many subjects -- from yeast choices to residual sugar -- and is, in my opinion, the heart and soul of the meadmaking process. "Conditioning, Aging, and Using Oak" covers these subjects sufficiently for the beginner. While I desired more, I am perhaps atypical.

Ingredients: "All About Honey" is perhaps the author's finest chapter. As a bee-keeper, he is here in his own element and it seeps through loud and clear. I think he restrained himself by only discussing 21 types of honey, but I could be guessing. "Fruit and Melomel" is another meat and potatoes chapter, delving far beyond the superficial to discuss the subject adequately. "Grapes and Pyment" is less meaty but still adequate, confined to the more commonly available Vitis vinifera wine grape varieties. My disappointment at seeing no discussion of North American native grapes may not be widespread, but leaves room for a second edition expansion. "Spices and Metheglin" opens a door wide enough for an 18-wheeler, and he shows tremendous restraint by only discussing 51 suitable spices (of which 15 are chile pepper varieties). "Grains and Braggot" concentrates exclusively on braggots -- malted barley meads -- with only passing mention that there are other grains available. But one can forgive him for this. He does, after all, cover the malts adequately enough to open another huge realm of possible variation.

Recipes: "Putting the Process and Ingredients Together" is a collection of only 11 recipes (12 counting the orange-blossom mead mentioned earlier), but they are carefully chosen to reveal an almost endless number of possibilities across several styles. I doubt anyone will be disappointed, for Ken Schramm's purpose here is to offer the models for countless variations. "Appreciating Your Mead" is a short, seemingly unnecessary chapter - until you read it. Skip it at your own peril.

Indeed, if you are going to make mead at all, skip this book at your own peril. My copy is well-tabbed, and I'm not a beginner....

"...90% of this book deals with ingredients and only 10% with specific recipes." states Ken Schramm in Part Four of his book "The Compleat Meadmaker". This is true. If you're looking for a pure recipe book, this is probably not it. However, if you're interested in the history of mead, why it declined, good technique for making you first batch, good technique for making your Nth batch, a good bit of down to Earth biochemistry, and the care and feeding of yeasts (what the heck IS the difference between Epernay and Primier Cuvee?), then this IS the book for you.

The book is divided into four parts: Background, Process, Ingredients and Recipes. "Background" discusses the history of mead, why it was probably the first fermented beverage, why beer, wine and distilled spirits have usurped its place, and the future of mead making. "Process" walks the reader, step by step through making their first batch of mead, from selecting brewing gear and honey, to bottling. "Process" also discusses more advanced mead making techniques. "Ingredients" goes into details about honeys, fruits for melomels, spices and herbs for metheglins, and grains for braggots. What are melomels, metheglins and braggots, you ask? Read the book and find out. "Recipes" contains, of course, recipes. The recipes offer samplings from the different styles of mead. Ken Schramm seems to be a proponent of experimentation, and these recipes offer excellent starting points.

Ken Schramm's writing style is relaxed, humorous, and informative. He comes across as knowing his subject material well, and can explain it to the most novice reader.

All in all, a great book for anyone interested in the topic of making mead. Skal!

What a great book! This book will help you with your first batch and still be an important reference work for your 100th batch. He covers all the basics of making a good mead, followed by enough honey and yeast reference information to do your own recipe formulation. He has answered so many of the questions that I could not find answers for online. Buy this book before you open your first jar(or bucket) of honey.

I have been been making homemade fruit wines for several years. I have read many books on wine making, and beer brewing. Yet in this mead book, I learned new things about wine making and the process I had not come across before. The book is holistic in its approach to understanding the brewing process, specifically with mead.

What is especially helpful is the author's command of the scientific understandings, that he relates in layman's terms. Portions read like an episode of "Good Eats" on the Food Network. This is a good thing.

As to the specifics of mead, I cannot imagine a more thorough book. To the qualities of varietal honies, to the methods for determining balance in adding fruits, spices, or grains, no stone is left unturned. Yet the book does not read like a textbook, I enjoyed it as a read, not just a reference.

Ken's book was the first printed source for meadmaking that I read. It is very informative about many things including details on varietal honey and specifics about the harvesting process. The technical information about honey vareities is also very useful.

The recipes are few but good. I gained enough knowledge about the use of honey, fruits and spices to formulate many of my own recipes. This book helps to partner good information and techniques with your own creativity and imagination to make excellent mead right from the start.

My wife and I bought this book in June 2003 at the AHA conference in Chicago. We started making mead in August 2003. In 2004 we won a gold medal at the AHA National Homebrew Competition and in 2005 we won Gold and Bronze medals and were crowned the AHA Meadmakers of the Year for a Muscat Pyment.

We do believe that Ken's book had a lot to do with that. The book quickly takes you past the beginner steps many of us stumble on when starting a new hobby.

Buy the book and good luck.

Curt and Kathy Stock
St. Paul Homebrewers Club

Great resource for the beginner and the master. You want to get started quick? Read the basics and get to it. Then, while your first batch is fermenting, go more in-depth and learn about fining, oak chips, adjuncts, etc. Well-written, yet not chatty. Your copy will be as marked-up and dog-eared as mine as you note important facts to aid you in your quest for liquid gold. Mr. Schramm's book is, without a doubt, the absolute must-have resource for this topic.

This book is an excellent source for those interested in mead making. It takes a comprehensive look at the ingredients necessary and takes a straight forward approach to technique. This book is further enhanced by a very useful index, charts, and illustrations. The author also takes a lighter approach by including some self deprecating humor.
A book like this on mead making is long overdue!

WOW! This IS a great book! If you want to make mead, then this is the book for you. With the exception of some post fermentation details, this book covers all aspects of the mead making process and the equipment and supplies that you'll need to make award winning mead. I know, my first batch of mead is now gone, and after winning first place against wines in the local county fair, I get nothing but rave reviews. Thanks for the great book Ken.

PS: In the next edition, expand the chapter about post fermentation to focus more on the clarification process.

The mead bible, period.

Everything you need is in here. Schramm claims that your mead will take at least six months of aging to be good, "unless you are possessed of some meadmaking magic". Well, I guess I got lucky and Merlin helped me out from across the dimensions, because my very first batch was not merely drinkable at only one month after bottling, it beat out the Redstone and Chaucer basic meads hands down in a blind taste test...and they go for twelve and twenty a bottle respectively.

I just tried one of my last bottles from that first batch this weekend, and at six months it is truly sublime: mildly dry, not in the least cloying, and with a clear, crisp finish. Above all, it made my brain and body feel heavenly, much more refined and subtle than all but the finest wines, grape or honey-based, that I've ever tried.

I'd like to take credit, but it's really Schramm's doing. Those who read closely will find one special page where he details his own personal method and then quickly shifts back to talking about the "normal" method. That one page is where it's at. Quicker, easier, and better. That's Ken's genius right there. Well done, Sir Schramm.

I've also tried various champagne yeasts and other little touches, finding a few little secrets of my own since that first batch; therein lies one of the delights of homebrewing, the personal touch.

Whenever I share a bottle of my honey wine with a friend or even enjoy it alone before a fine sunset, guitar in hand, I always toast the real heroes of mead, our little winged friends (who are starting to disappear due to our insane chemical farming practices and GMO idiocy). We are only now beginning to understand how vital our insect pals are to all food crops. I have truly learned to love and appreciate and even revere our busy, buzzy little friends, for they have opened my eyes to a whole new world of mellow alcoholic delight.

And thus I always salute them with every new glass of mead:
"Cheers to the bees!"

I will never again look at a bee without deep respect.
Honey is magic, and mead is distilled magic.

I'm so glad I ordered this book from the library at the same time as I ordered a mead kit. I'm new to home brewing and decided on mead for a first try, but the "complete instructions" that came with my kit might as well have been written in another language, heh. Thanks to this book and a few helpful YouTube videos, I was able to decipher the steps and make my first batch (can't wait until it's ready to try!).

I also decided to buy a copy of the book for myself, as there are some other recipes and ideas I want to try.

If you're an experienced mead maker already, you may find this basic, but it's a great resource for beginners.