The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm is the quintessential guide for the home mead maker. At 212 pages it holds one of the most impressive collections of data and information on honey and mead making. While most other books set aside a few pages or a chapter to mead making, the Compleat Meadmaker is one of the only books written exclusively for mead making by the home brewer.

Background
This first and rather short part is an introduction of mead. Its history and presumed discovery by early man. There is also a description of the different types and styles of mead.

Process
The second part of the Compleat Meadmaker discusses the process of making mead. A few introductory recipes are given as well as a review of the equipment that will be needed to make a first basic batch. The topic of yeast follows with a list of yeasts and their characteristics that they impart to mead. Honey is not the most ideal food source for yeast and is lacking in proper nutrients for yeast to thrive. Schramm gives ample focus on the proper nutrients and thier amounts during the each of the different phases that yeast will go through in the fermentation process. This section is of prime importance for those who have had a batch of mead get stuck during fermentation before it was finished. The section finishes with a discussion on oak and aging your mead with its effects on flavor.

Ingredients
The ingredients section of the Compleat Meadmaker starts off with the most important and obvious of ingredients, honey. Ken Schramm covers multiple aspects of honey including its sugar contents, coloring, and nutrient compositions. Most impressive is the list of over 40 types of honey, measured across 17 different characteristics and compositions. This truly gives the home brewer a way to fine tune to an exact flavor trying to be reached.
Next the author covers in good detail fruits to be added to meads to make a melomel. Pros and Cons are listed for different fruits and a very handy quick reference table is included to cover mild, medium, or strong fruit flavors. This is extremely useful for a home brewer wanting to test out fruit flavors and yet not be afraid to risk an entire 5 gallon batch with trial and error. Following this is a section on spices for creating metheglin meads.

Recipes
The last section of the Compleat Meadmaker covers many recipes for various types of meads from dry, medium, and sweet flavors to fuit melomels and spicey metheglins. I was pleased the an example of several different styles of mead were included. Too many mead resources only list sweet and not-so-sweet recipes. The section and book ends with online honey ordering resources that are quite useful for the mead maker looking to explore into more exotic types of honeys.

Final Thoughts
I've had the pleasure of meeting Ken Schramm at the last publicly held Meadfest in Denver, Colorado both during his public presentation and also in a private after festival party. He is as generous with advice to the novive mead maker as he is knowledge on everything dealing with mead making. I've learned as much if not more about mead making from him and his book the Compleat Meadmaker then I have from online communities, email news letters, and even my own trial and error. This book should be in the collection of every mead maker and every home brewer.