One of the things I love about you guys is whatever ideas I might have, you have already done it.
I want to try some mead and plan on going in 2 wildly different directions with it.
First I want to put away a one gallon traditional mead for when my guy comes home. He drinks hard liquor not really into beer, and he just got deployed so I have a year to get his celebration beverage ready. He has requested still, and semi sweet. I plan on using the basic article here, and the one someone posted from homebrewtalk.
The stuff I am more interested in making for myself is a fruity low alcohol "meadcooler" I was going to start with the Short Mead recipe I read in SPEEDBREWING (strawberry pepper, but I was going to ditch the pepper for personal preference). But I was reading the most recent cyster thread and got a head full of ideas, and raised a couple questions.
What yeast do you like for a lower ABV mead, or cyster?
Will a straight raspberry short mead be too tart? will I need to balance the tartness with something else added?
What other fruits are we forgetting? I see the berries well represented, apple cider, but what about stone fruit, or a pear cider in place of apple? Speaking of Pear cider, if you don't press your own where do you get your juice?