I would like to improve but really do not know where to begin on improving.
I have read and reread the newBee guide. I have read through the Schramm book reference in the NewBee guide.
Hey don't worry! You're not alone. I still find it a challenge and I'm pretty sure mead maker with much more experience than I have still find that its not easy to do.
In addition to the ideas shared above, my advice is to start with improving your palate. When you educate your palate, you become more able to identify the things you like about a mead and the things you don't. You'll be able to taste it and say to yourself, "this one lacks body", or "this one is flabby and needs acid," and so forth. When you can identify what is missing in a mead that would make it better, you can go back to your brewlog
* and make adjustments that will allow the next batch to be closer to the ideal you are seeking. When you know what you want to change, it becomes much easier to adjust a recipe to get it.
If you repeat a recipe enough times, you can really start to fine tune things.
SO.... How does one get palate education? There's a lot of things you can do.
1. Join a wine/mead/brew club to taste with other folks.
2. Go to wine tastings - many large wine stores will have them regularly scheduled. If you're lucky, the staff there may be able to educate you while you're tasting, but if not, use google to find some reviews of the wine you tasted and compare their description with yours.
3. Take a formal wine appreciation class. Personally I'd love to go to sommelier school if I had the time and money.
4. Buy and taste wines/meads of different styles, or of a style you'd like to emulate, and again, use google to help you train. If you look at the "virtual tasting" thread started by Wrathwilde, you can see some of my attempts to do this.
5. Find a wine bar - there's one near my home that has the little machines that keep them under inert gas, and dispense them with a little pre-paid card. They have something like 50-60 different wines, and are constantly rotating new things in. (this makes doing #4 more economical in some cases).
6. Practice scoring wines. There are many books/score-sheet options but pick one and use it routinely.
While I still do not have a refined palate, I have found that this has helped to allow me to identify where my meads come up short (which happens all too often). If you see my "Ay Carambola" thread in the Patron's Brewlogs, you can see how I changed approach based on the results of prior batches (and their shortcomings) in the hopes it will be better this time. Time will tell.
* If someone is not keeping good records, now is the time to start keeping a good brewlog. Fisher Kel Tath has created an excellent editable pdf file which is a great place to start if you haven't used something before. You'll find it as a Sticky in the brewlog section. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
), was not what I was shooting for. I'm hoping this was limited to just this one bottle (neighbor admitted that he had stored it for over a year standing up versus laying on its side), but until I open another bottle (soon!), I won't know for sure if this isn't affecting the whole batch. And if other bottles are showing these effects, it's back to the brewlog to see what happened, and what not to do in the future.
