by Tony (64.12.97.9) on October 26, 2002 at 12:17:19:
My friend and I have tried to brew mead twice now and both times the out come has been less than great. The first time we did a regular batch. However, when it came to bottling we did it to soon. The mead had not compleatly cleared yet. It later cleared in the bottles leaving a 1/2 inch thick layer on the bottom of each bottle and a nasty taste! From this we tried to experament with a new batch (choosing to skip over the fact that we can't even get a regular batch made correctly) we the tried to make a strawberry mead with real hand picked strawberries! We then cut, cleaned, pealed, chopped some 13 pounds of strawberries and used 18 pounds of honey... and 2&1/2 years later we hade a finnished product. This time it cleared before we bottled it. But once again the end result was not even close to what we wanted. Mead should be a sweet wine. When we make it, it becomes rocket fuel. Even after we sweeten with sugar. Can you or someone go through a step by step on how to make mead so we can see where we went wrong. Thank you