I've only just started incorporating pH readings into my regimen. Odd I know, but I've been operating too long thinking gravity (alcohol) is everything. Haven't even begun to measure TA. Baby steps I guess.
I'm sure we all feel like were taking baby steps once we get past the initial "main and plain" things about making mead.
I have been reading a yeast book called Yeast. The practical guide to beer fermentation. Grant it, it's a beer book. But it's by far the most scientific read I have jumped into. It's written by the owner of White Labs. Chris White. Even though it's a beer book there are many things we can learn from. Because after all, it's the same yeast. I have learned many things that flies in the face of what we all take for granted as being true here on the forum. It now has me "chasing rabbits" down several different rabbit holes to make adjustments to my current understanding/protocol. Just when I felt like I was pretty comfortable in my understanding of good fermentation practices. I'm not disappointed, far from it actually. The feedback I get from people when I give them Mead is reassuring I'm doing lots right. (In fact I have a few batches I can't emagine I can do a single thing to improve them)
With that said just incorporating the few new things I have read should make even better results. So don't be discouraged Mazer828. Remember it's both the journey and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we are all in pursuit of. I think the hardest part is going slow enough, and with a clear head so as not do anything without a cause in mind. And every cause should add to the overall end result, otherwise it's detracting from what we are doing. All to often here I read of guys doing this or that, and so many times I wonder if they have even really thought through things. I bet if you asked them why, they would have very little to answer with. Except "it sounded good" or "I wanted to see what would happen". I know those are important. We don't go anywhere if we don't expound our boundaries. But if we have learned everything we can from the ones before us, maybe only then would we know why we do this or that.
I'm one of the best bowyer's in the world. After I finally had as good of an understanding as you might be able to get I spent the next several years reinventing the wheel. I had reasons galore and understood all of the tradeoffs. To gain this it will cost you over there type thing. After hundreds of bows I had learned that our forefathers, all mostly indigenous peoples from different parts of the world, had established (what seemed to me to be dogma/tradition,) physical laws based on the proper physics for the materials they had available to them. I eventually ended back at where I started. But I returned with a much greater understanding of the main and plain things that had been discovered hundreds, (and in other examples), thousands of years earlier. My point is this!
We are so impatient in this world that we instantly jump off the path and start running all over the place. Never spending enough time with "the main and plain things" to gain all we can from history and tradition. I realize science has pushed mead making into the 21st century. And that's a great thing. But a greater understanding does not negate the proven things of the past. I think every one of us would be farther along had we stayed in the sand box a while longer before we headed out to where no man has been before.
Oskaar the great said it it much fewer words. Learn how to make a good traditional first. I think if that were our first goal, all of us would have a much better grasp of this crazy thing called Mazing.
I just made a new word
