This is my personal library of modern how-to-brew books for beer and mead.   Suggestions for additions are welcome; so are corrections.  I don’t have any surprises in here; experienced brewers will undoubtedly recognize all the titles and have a few of their own to add.  Schramm, Papazian, Acton and Douglas, [...]

Specific gravity, that magic number that allows us to easily figure how alcoholic our brews are, or are likely to be; how sweet they may be, and something about their anticipated mouthfeel…lots to think about, with gravity.  I am making the assumption that a swift, efficient fermentation is best for [...]

Recently a new brewer talked to me about fermentation time.  He thought his mead should be finished much more quickly than it was.  When competition judges tasted his mead, the universal feedback was to wait another six months to a year, and boy would we like to taste it then.  Honey [...]

Honey contains small amounts of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, as well as anti-oxidants, but not enough to make sufficient nutrition for your yeast.  If there is lag time in getting yeast activity started in a mead must, it could be due to the lack of available nitrogen and nutrient compounds. Adding things [...]

Yeast: there was a a cry for help on a brewing forum, asking why his fermentation had stopped sooner than he thought it ought to have. It comes down to whether the yeast is attenuated or not, ie; has the must stopped fermenting because it’s out of sugars or has [...]