Make Delicious Honey Wine at Home with The Compleat Meadmaker

Stephen Lusk: After a bit of research, this book was recommended by several sources. It lives up to expectations. A great primer for the budding mead maker.

United States on Nov 21, 2023

default_character: 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...

United States on May 20, 2023

Amazon Kunde: Warning! Units are not converted correctly into Kg (for now I have spotted this for one recepie)

I have not finished the book yet, however I have tried making a mead from it. I followed the recipe for a dry mead in metric units only to find out that the conversion was done wrong! I would be missing 50% of the honey compared to Lbs. I was fortunate enough to spot the error in time.

Germany on Jan 07, 2022

D MacK: I found it informative. Very much so. In fact, I’ve started a second reading of the production portions and learned a few things.

Canada on Jul 29, 2021

LolaDruid: I was a bit disappointed considering how highly recommended this book was. It does not cover, at all, natural sources for additives (yeast nutrients, tannins, acid blends). He talks about all the chemical additives you can purchase for these, without even a mention that there are natural options. I was hoping for more in-depth info on this and wasn’t expecting it to not be even mentioned. I’ve been making mead for years and have been looking to step up my game and learn more. But I don’t understand why someone would for instance, buy chemicals for yeast nutrient when a handful of raisins from your kitchen works perfectly fine, or buy an acid blend when you can just use a teaspoon of lemon juice...
I also found his instructions lacking, particular to his method, and not well organized.
There are gems of information in here, when you sift through it carefully, and I don’t regret buying and reading this book. It may be a good start for a beginner mead maker, but overall, I wasn’t terribly impressed.

Canada on Jul 19, 2020

Prometheus: The book arrived very quickly and was well packaged. So I would give the suppliers 5 stars.

As an experienced wine and melomel maker, I can't say I found this book that good. To be fair it does contain a lot of information about mead and honey, although I would argue that some of the information is somewhat nugatory. I found some of the material old fashioned and am not sure the author has experienced some of what he writes. For example, the tiny bit about finings and in particular bentonite differs significantly from my experience. I did not find his melomel recipes interesting (or useful) and this whole section was disappointing. I think the book is OK but not that good.

I believe the best way to get into mead is to try it and experiment. Therefore, I would suggest "Making Mead" by Acton & Duncan would be better for people contemplating mead making.

I wasn't impressed with the history section and if the reader wants to know about the history of alcoholic beverages, a better starting place would be "Uncorking the Past" by McGovern

United Kingdom on Oct 25, 2013

B Gutz: 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...

United States on Dec 16, 2011

A. Burchfield: I've gotten several beer brewing books from Amazon and decided to get this book on Mead because I like honey and wanted to learn something about making mead with it. I'd always heard about mead and was curious about it but if you're expecting a lot of recipes this book probably isn't for you.

Mr. Schramm puts out a lot of information on the history, styles of meads, the science and ingredients. I'm not sure if it has enough information to go out and brew the stuff (I'm still reading the book and have never tried to brew anything)if you're a complete novice but it might do it. When Mr. Schramm titled the book complete he meant just that, only 2 or 3 recipes in the first 158 pages- the rest of it covering anything else you'd need or want to know (there is a 9 page recipe section late in the book).

I liked the section on honey and other suppliers, 13 pages long and 9 of them cover mail order honey suppliers, the rest are for spices and other equipment.

I may never get around to making Mead but if I do I'll be glad I've got this book.

United States on Nov 28, 2005

peterpiper: An interesting, well written and laid out book. There's lots of useful information and scientific detail, aimed more at the experienced winemaker, and for the beginner there's a short introduction to the basics. There are eleven recipes but this is not just another recipe book - it gives you a basis for experimentation, search the Net if you want more ideas.
I am a long practised home winemaker (hic!), of both kit and country wines, and have just started keeping bees on a small scale so the production of mead seems the next natural step.
A real plus is that it includes more chemistry and scientific study information than most other books on brewing (and beekeeping). The chapter on yeast and fermentation includes the chemical equation for fermentation, and the properties of honey are broken down in to what can be measured and what cannot - its flavour and aroma. You don't have to study the science to produce a great brew but it can add to the enjoyment.
As well as discussing how the varieties of honey will influence the mead produced there are chapters covering the choice of the other ingredients used in brewing melomel, pyment, metheglin and braggot.
I wouldn't...

United Kingdom on Jul 16, 2004