My successes in wine making happened after a trio of false starts, one of which was an attempt at peach mead. My suggestion to you is to avoid canned fruit (if you use fruit, and I suggest you do - straight mead [only honey] won't give much depth to your flavors), and make sure you use an active yeast strain. Don't play around with that second part - home winemakers are sometimes told that there are enough wild yeasts in the air and on the fruit to make the fermentation happen but don't listen to that. Add champagne yeast - my winery almost always used it, and in most every type of wine they produced. I used Lalvin EC-1118 and had great success, ensuring a complete ferment and it's fast acting. Honey wines have a tendency to be slow slow to finish the completion of primary fermentation. Use an open-topped, food safe bin that you can cover with a cloth or top, keeping in mind that fermenting wine will attract ants and other bugs and rodents and lions and tigers and bears -- okay, off track that -- keep it secure, but don't forget that an active ferment needs to breathe too.

Serious word of caution - do not share your living space with an active ferment due to the large amount of CO2 produced in the chemical reaction you're inducing. People die. Can't share wine if you're dead!

Take sugar readings with a hydrometer - BEFORE you add the yeast, and don't assume you've got a proper level of sweetener to make it happen. Add cane sugar to the must and make sure it is dissolved completely, if you need to add it. The yeast doesn't know the difference between natural sugar and cane sugar; don't be afraid to use yeast nutrients and yeast enhancers to help keep your yeast healthy during the fermentation. Also, practice taking hydrometer readings - learn what the word meniscus means. It takes some practice and it pays off. You will be taking sugar readings every day or so, watching for a drop in specific gravity that'll tell you things are working in the right direction.

Don't be scared to taste your product during its making, but don't drink much due to an active yeast's talent for creating a rather uncomfortable laxative effect on the human body. Besides, you can afford some Carlings Black Label beer to get drunk by rather than fuck with your hard work!

Stir your must regularly, every few hours if you can, and PLEASE use a reputable thermometer because a hot ferment will create off flavors in your product. Never ferment at a temperature higher than 75 degrees, and never colder than 65 (the yeasts struggle to make their magic outside of that range). If needed, buy a heater that's food safe, or keep the fermentor in a room where you have complete temperature control.

Once your hydrometer is telling you the fermentation is slowing down, it is time to get the wine off the gross lees; siphon it and leave as much of the solids behind as you can. It is going into a glass carboy; I don't use plastic to store wine once the primary ferment is complete. Plastic BAD on so many levels. Do not leave much air space above the wine in the carboy, especially later on when very little or no more CO2 is being produced, and use a bubble trap on top of the carboy immediately. The air we breathe is full of bad things that'll make your mead into vinegar or something worse. Air is your worse enemy once the alcohol is made. And ferment the wine until it is dry - don't play around with the process, trying to make a sweet style of mead, by stopping the fermentation before it is done. There are ways to do it, but the home winemaker cannot control things the way a professional winery can, cold stabilization and additives that kill the last of the yeast, etc. Let all the sugar be turned into alcohol and CO2 - if you want sweet mead, the best way to get there is by adding invert sugar to the product just before you bottle. Leaving leftover, residual sugar in a wine as you bottle it will probably create a secondary fermentation in the bottle that will make all your corks fly out when you least expect it - like all over your white carpet when the temperature goes up a few degrees wherever you're storing it. If you want to make sparkling mead, it gets complicated, besides the specialty corks and cages you'll need to keep the product in the bottle.

In a few days you'll need to remove the mead from the carboy again to get it off the sediment forming in the bottom, and again, try to not suck up the sediment as much as possible when you are siphoning. Invest in a decent siphon, and do yourself a solid, learn how to use it by practicing on plain water before you attempt to do it to your precious liquid gold. Don't get greedy and siphon up much (if any) sediment. If you are careful you can find clarity by stringent siphoning. What is left behind has alcohol, and you can certainly sample this if you want - the sediment won't hurt you, and you'll get a buzz from it if you drink enough. Have a friend there who's not scared to tell you if they think it sucks. And it might, but be patient and know that with every batch you will find your technique improving. Also, mead has been known to age into better flavor if given the time in the bottle it needs to do so. I promise nothing, but even if it doesn't improve much, you can still catch a buzz from it.

You will need to transfer the wine from one carboy to another a few times over its production, so be prepared, and have a properly sanitized carboy at the ready. Proper cleaning of your equipment and bottles can make the difference between decent product and complete shit. Do not use water to 'top up', meaning there will always be some head space left every time you siphon from one carboy to another. If you use water, more than a few ounces a gallon will soon thin your mead down into something that tastes bland and crappy. Best to use a decent wine to top up with, and always ALWAYS taste the wine you're using to top up with or you're bound to catch the bad bottle some marginal winemaker made. Bad wine added to good mead makes nothing but more bad wine.

Bottling day is a big ball of wax to accomplish and is better done with someone who has at least a little experience in the process. Clean bottles are absolutely essential if you want to share with others, and cleanliness throughout the whole dance can truly be a deal maker or deal breaker. Investing in a bottling siphon will pay you back with less waste and more control.

That's about it, and I'll expect questions here if you have them. I can't believe how much of this spilled out of me sober!

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I am just starting to explore home brewing and plan on getting my first batches of mead started early in the new year. I will start with small batches and see how it goes. Tips and tricks are definitely appreciated.

I don't have much to add to the previous poster's detailed description except to remark that you don't really have to worry about a lot of carbon dioxide if you're brewing small batches (like five gallons or less). If your house has any ventilation at all, there won't be enough of a concentration to affect you.

I've used the Lalvin yeast, Red Star yeast, and also a liquid one that was developed specifically for meads. It all depends on the level of sweetness you want. I usually go for drier ones, but it's a matter of taste. Experiment with a few to see what works for you.

One thing I do is prime the mead when I'm bottling it, exactly as if you were priming beer when you're bottling it. You can either use sugar or more honey... I prefer the latter. You can get the proper conversion factor on-line.

The brewing process isn't really all that different from beer, although you do have to add enough acid to correct the pH of the mix. I use orange and lemon juice, but others prefer tannic acid. Either one works.

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