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Rob Ratliff (sandman) has a mead recipe book out!

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pain

pain

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Clwurster

Clwurster

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O yeah. Looking forward to this. Damm...gonna have to probably get more containers. Hate when that happens-not really. Oh & more honey. I think I only got about 8 gallons of acacia left. Soooo...more orange blossom & some wildflower too. Spring is coming soon so I gotta get some black button sage honey for those strawberries. Gawd I love that stuff-everybody wants some of that, friggin expensive tho. Worth it!! Ok then, going down to the mead cave, got a mango/strawberry experiment of safale 05/71B high gravity mead to stir. Thanks for the heads up on this book
 
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bernardsmith

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The range of recipes in The Big Book is enormous. In fact there are numerous recipes listed under every BJCP category. but I am always very critical... always... and I would have preferred an index that would enable readers to more easily locate recipes by key ingredients. Organizing the recipes by BJCP categories suggests that those using the book are looking to meet specific categories . Are we likely to plan our next batch by deciding to make a mead to the M2E category? I guess I think not. I think we are far more likely to plan a batch with, say, chocolate and so do I look for a recipe with chocolate under "traditional" ... or "experimental" or some other category? So it is not so easy to determine whether there any hopped mead recipes in the book, or recipes for t'ej. Is there? And on what page do the stone fruit melomels begin? Could have been better organized in my opinion...
 
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Squatchy

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I think it's perfect to list them according to the MJCP categories. How else would you? If I knew what I wanted to make, I would know what was in it, and would know exactly where to look. WHat other way would you suggest Bernard?
 
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caduseus

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Squatchy said:
I think it's perfect to list them according to the MJCP categories. How else would you? If I knew what I wanted to make, I would know what was in it, and would know exactly where to look. WHat other way would you suggest Bernard?
Click to expand...

I agree.
For those with multiple ingredients how would you organize? How would you choose which is key?

Plus the BJCP category is standardized, international, well known, well accepted, and organized.

This is not unlike the Dewey decimal system for libraries. It is not a perfect system but also organized, known, and accepted.
 
loveofrose

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I don't know how else to organize it. If/when I write a book, it would be all weirdomels. How would I organize that!?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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bernardsmith

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Alphabetical by key ingredient other than honey (eg apple, coconut, orange, raspberry ...) . BUT the most important thing is to provide an extensive index at the back that allowed you to look up each recipe by any listed ingredient (eg muscadine, caramel, cinnamon...) , and by honey varietal (eg blackberry honey; cranberry honey...). So the book can be arranged any way you want - but the contents need to be accessible to the readers who will use it. Granted, that's a great deal more work for the author (Robert) and for the editor (Vickie) but, readers can far more easily look to see how this author uses this fruit with that varietal honey or that spice with this fruit - because I want ideas about, say, the quantity of hops I might add to a cyser or what kinds of grains I might use for a braggot made with orange blossom honey rather than how to make a mead for BJCP category M4A. The more "open" and cross-indexed a printed book is, the more user friendly it is, the more likely people are to adopt it as their mainstay in this online age. But this is just me...
 
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bernardsmith

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"This is not unlike the Dewey decimal system for libraries. It is not a perfect system but also organized, known, and accepted."

But readers do not need to know anything about the Dewey decimal system to be able to find a book about, say, Admiral Lord Nelson or any other biography although the librarian may need to know DD to be able to refile this book under biography and not, say 18th Century British history.
 
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caduseus

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Spoiler Alert! I finally got the book this weekend

1)The only thing I dont like about the content is that the reference page is 2 off from the actual page.
2) As far as ageing he either does not specify a rough range or says 2-3 years. This makes it hard to plan in making a batch.
3) I dont want to be Debbie Downer or overly critical but for those who have not gotten the book you may want to read what I wrote.

If you like your meads sweet or dessert sweet, this is the book for you! It has a lot of great sweet recipes- More than half the recipes!

However I like my beverages dry and occasionally off-dry (semi-sweet as he calls it).
There were only 4 dry recipes: 59% sweet/dessert, 34% off dry and 7% dry.

Very disappointing for me personally in what I like to drink.
In addition, we have to battle the perception that the general public has: "I don't like mead because it is sweet".

Hey I may be asking too much to have a lot of good dry recipes. For me if you can make a good dry wine/mead, then stepping up to a good sweet mead/wine is overly easy.

Still an overall asset to the mead community at large and any newbees.

I may experiment with the off-dry into making them the high end of dry to be more palatable for me. There are about 20 of those.
 
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WayneG

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I got my copy a few weeks ago and today I figured I would compare his recipe to my first attempt.
I am doing the semi sweet traditional on page 58.
It is my first time with Fermaid O, K1V yeast and a one gallon batch size.

I see that his standard method in the book is to boil 1/2 the water and then add the honey and then remaining water.
To avoid dirtying another pot, and the boil and possibly overheating the honey, I put the 2 gallon ferment bucket on the scale, zeroed it, weighed in the honey and used bottled spring water warmed just enough to dissolve the honey.
Other than that I am following the recipe fully.
I am curious to see what speed of fermenting and flavor differences will be in the end.
Wayne
 
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Billyjt

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New to mead making
Got the book. Want to make 5 G batch. Would just multiple everything to get to the 5G mark. Nutrients and other ingredients.
Thanks in advance
BillyT
 
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Squatchy

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I would think you can make any recipe as wet or dry as you like it. Also, I would expect them to be drinkable right out of the vessel just like everything else we make.
 
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