Essential books on Homebrewing
These are the books I find myself returning to again and again for information and techniques. They are listed roughly in order of complexity.
Homebrewing for Dummies (Marty Nachel) This book is more useful than it sounds. Written in the straightforward style which is a hallmark of the 'Dummies' series, it takes a nested approach to brewing; first it describes what absolutely needs to happen, then what should happen to make better beer, then the various advanced techniques and ingredients that might happen to make the best possible beer.
Homebrewing, Vol. 1 (Al Korzonas) focuses on extract brewing techniques but is useful to all levels of brewer. His writing is knowledgeable and thorough.
How to Brew (John Palmer) is free online or can be purchased in hard copy. This book is comprehensive and very well written. Palmer does a good job of explaining the intellectual and scientific framework behind brewing. Includes cool nomographs for mash pH and water chemistry, original gravity, and hop bitterness calculations.
Brewmaster’s Bible (Stephen Snyder) I return to this book often for its handy tables and detailed descriptions of styles and ingredients,
Designing Great Beers (Ray Daniels) This book was a great leap forward for my recipe creation process. Daniels takes a style-by-style look at the parameters and ingredients of commercial and award-winning homebrewed beers, and blends this analysis with erudite descriptions of each beer style, Anyone who likes to make their own recipes from scratch should own this book.
The Classic Beer Style Series (Brewers Publications), takes Daniels' concept a step further, and has a separate book for each style of beer, including a detailed analysis of the style history and commercial examples. Each short book has a different author; an expert in that particular style. For example, Pierre Rajotte's "Belgian Ale" (#6 in the series), is a nice quick look at the history of Belgian beers, for those of you who are so inclined.
Homebrewing for Dummies (Marty Nachel) This book is more useful than it sounds. Written in the straightforward style which is a hallmark of the 'Dummies' series, it takes a nested approach to brewing; first it describes what absolutely needs to happen, then what should happen to make better beer, then the various advanced techniques and ingredients that might happen to make the best possible beer.
Homebrewing, Vol. 1 (Al Korzonas) focuses on extract brewing techniques but is useful to all levels of brewer. His writing is knowledgeable and thorough.
How to Brew (John Palmer) is free online or can be purchased in hard copy. This book is comprehensive and very well written. Palmer does a good job of explaining the intellectual and scientific framework behind brewing. Includes cool nomographs for mash pH and water chemistry, original gravity, and hop bitterness calculations.
Brewmaster’s Bible (Stephen Snyder) I return to this book often for its handy tables and detailed descriptions of styles and ingredients,
Designing Great Beers (Ray Daniels) This book was a great leap forward for my recipe creation process. Daniels takes a style-by-style look at the parameters and ingredients of commercial and award-winning homebrewed beers, and blends this analysis with erudite descriptions of each beer style, Anyone who likes to make their own recipes from scratch should own this book.
The Classic Beer Style Series (Brewers Publications), takes Daniels' concept a step further, and has a separate book for each style of beer, including a detailed analysis of the style history and commercial examples. Each short book has a different author; an expert in that particular style. For example, Pierre Rajotte's "Belgian Ale" (#6 in the series), is a nice quick look at the history of Belgian beers, for those of you who are so inclined.
posted by Charlie | 7:48 PM
3 Comments:
Korzonas' book is excellent, but doesn't cover all-grain brewing. It has the best troubleshooting discussion I've ever seen, a lot of examination of brewing controversies, and a ton of information on specific ingredients and suppliers. There was supposed to be a Vol. 2 covering all-grain, but then his wife had triplets :) If I had to pick one book for reasonable technically-minded beginning brewers, this would be it.
I really like Palmer's book. Even if most of it is online, it's worth having a bound copy around. Good recipes, and a great discussion of mashing. I used this and Noonan's _Brewing Lager Beers_ when I was studying for the BJCP. This would be the next book I'd recommend.
Ray Daniels' book is like a postgradaute textbook -- dense, full of raw data, and old enough that it's becoming outdated. A brewing club full of competitive brewers will tear that book apart. It's still a good reference for recipes if you're not familiar with a style, but it's full of ten-year-old information.
Noonan's _Brewing Lager Beers_ is pretty technical, but still interesting. He's a grumpy old purist brewer.
I can't recommend anything with Papazian's name on it, except for humor value. I grew up with a hippy dad who homebrewed, and he would have loved this book. The field has moved on quite a bit since then.
I agree about Papazian. He was seminal in developing the fledgling homebrewing movement and should be lauded for his efforts, but his books generally aren't the best guides of homebrewing in my opinion. For example, his suggestion of pouring hot concentrated wort through a funnel into cold water in a fermenter is a good way to ruin beer with hot-side areation (and burn whomever you rope into holding the funnel - just ask my sister).
I'll have to look for Noonan - I haven't read it. I have a similar opinion of Dave Miller's "Homebrewing Guide" - It can be dry and technical, but it is packed full of thorough explanations of the process of brewing.
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