John Palmer's Guide to Saving the American Beer Drinker
Written: Sep 13 '06 (Updated Sep 16 '06)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: This is the introduction to brewing guide, it's both detailed and readable.
Cons: This book is magnificently constructed, I have no complaints.
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line likes to pet the fermenters.
|
|
|
| Guildencrantz's Full Review: John J. Palmer - How to Brew: Everything You Need ... |
When I started preparing to brew I needed to satiate my geeky drive to understand exactly what was going on so I dropped by a local brew shop and asked them what I should read. Fortunately this is a great little brew shop and after talking to the clerk for about twenty minutes he said I needed to read John Palmer's How to Brew, but they were out. Instead he handed me Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer saying it was a good second choice; when I completed Dave Miller's and still had questions I sought out a copy of How to Brew and now wish I'd been able to read it first.
How to Brew as a classic example of a good introductory cook book: Palmer explains everything that readers need to know to start brewing quickly yet provides the information that will allow them to move on to more advanced techniques without this information getting in the way of the basics.
As all the good introductions to brewing do John Palmer starts of by getting the reader right into brewing. To demonstrate the basic procedures and minimal requirements for brewing he walks through the steps of a an extract brew—this is the brewing equivalent of making Jello. What sets How to Brew above books such as Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide is that this introduction is part of a section dedicated to extract brewing. Palmer clearly discusses all the factors involved in extract brewing before moving on to more complicated procedures.
The second section is a baby step section: "Brewing With Extract And Specialty Grain". This is a small two chapter section which acts as a bridge between the all-extract section mentioned above and the all-grain section which follows. Palmer's layout follows the general path of most homebrewers from extract to all-grain and layers on information in a logical progression so that readers aren't overwhelmed.
While Palmer's method does such an excellent job of unfolding the layers of brewing naturally he also manages to be extremely thorough. When using the book as a reference some of the formulae and examples aren't necessarily where I expect them to be however the excellent index always gets me to the correct page quickly. The bright side of this is that Palmer doesn't repeat himself excessively, as books designed to be references frequently do.
Another fabulous thing about this book are the extensive appendices. On top of information about beer color and clarity the the appendices include sections about building wort chillers and lauter tuns of various designs as well as a section on "brewing metallurgy" which covers metals which are, or can be, used to build this equipment. The extraordinary thing about this is that he covers the metals to avoid as well as those to use; if you aren't sure why you shouldn't weld copper and brass fittings together for use in anything that will touch the wort/beer, this is the chapter for you.
John Palmer's How to Brew is the introduction to brewing book; it's a highly readable guide that covers the basics of extract brewing and guides the reader right through to advanced all-grain mashing. Included are also great tips on ways to assemble equipment that isn't available, or is expensive, through retail channels. Although experienced brewers will likely find this a useful book the neophyte will inevitably find it indispensable.
Chapters:
SECTION I - BREWING WITH MALT EXTRACT
1. A Crash Course in Brewing
2. Brewing Preparations
3. Malt Extract, Beer Kits, and Brewing Sugars
4. Water for Extract Brewing
5. Hops
6. Yeast
7. Boiling and Cooling
8. Fermentation
9. Fermenting Your Fist Batch
10. What is Different About Brewing Lager Beer?
11. Priming and Bottling
SECTION II - BREWING WITH EXTRACT AND SPECIALTY GRAIN
12. Understanding Malted Barley & Adjuncts
13. Steeping Specialty Grains
SECTION III - ALL-GRAIN BREWING
14. How the Mash Works
15. Understanding the Mash pH
16. The Methods of Mashing
17. Getting the Wort Out (Lautering)
18. What to Expect When You Are Extracting
19. Your First All-Grain Batch
SECTION IV - RECIPES, EXPERIMENTING, AND TROUBLESHOOTING
20. Some of My Favorite Beer Styles and Recipes
21. Developing Your Own Recipes
22. Is My Beer Ruined?
SECTION V - APPENDICES
Appendix A: Using Hydrometers and Refractometers
Appendix B: Beer Color
Appendix C: Beer Clarity
Appendix D: Building Wort Chillers
Appendix E: Lauter Tun Design for Batch Sparging
Appendix F: Lauter Tun Design for Continuous Sparging
Appendix G: Brewing Metallurgy
Appendix H: Metric Conversions
References
Glossary
Index
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Guildencrantz
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: Boulder, CO
Reviews written: 405
Trusted by: 160 members
About Me:
My coffee cup has Smurf escape instructions in it.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.