Higher Level Reference Books Suggestions Please.

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mikesnothere

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Anyone know any good books to help really nut out AG recipe development?

I've got a copy of Dave Millers 'Homebrewing Guide', which has been invaluable up to this point, but I've been doing AG for a while now and am looking for more of a reference when fine tuning recipes.

I'd go to my local, but there's only one in Launceston, and the three separate occasions I've been in I've been treated like an intruding piece of s***, so it's book depository for me.

Cheers.
 
Hi Mike
Several good books out there to help with recipe design
Designing Great Beer by Ray Daniels
Radical Brewing Randy Mosher
Brewing Classic Styles Jamil Zainascheff
How to Brew John Palmer
Brewing Lager Beer Greg Noonan
Just finished Gordon Strong's book which is OK
heap of others all these books have sections to do with recipe design, the top one is probably the best of them



Home brew shop in Launie is the worst I have come across in 20 years. I never go in any more. Tend to use sponsors and book depository for purchases.
Cheers
Chris
 
Designing great beers and brewing classic styles are really good intermediate books. They both give good info and also give you recipes. All the recipes bar one out of bcs (that I've done) have come up real good, and that one was my fault...

Edit: clarification
 
I looked at brewing classic styles, and it sounded great, but seemed to focus on extract recipes. Designing great beers also caught my attention, but it seemed like it might not have a whole lot more than what I've already got. Another on I came across was principles of brewing science, by George fix, but read somewhere it didn't have a lot in the way of practicality. This is why I wish I could browse them!

Cheers, Mike.
 
BCS offers extract and full grain versions of each recipe.

I think they are trying to be inclusive by offering the extract recipe first but they suggest the replacement base malt, amount and better still - conversions for all the US imperial units.

Principles of brewing science is great (reading it at the moment) but based around the chemistry of brewing - so chemical pathways during fermentation, water, malting and mashing, enzyme action etc.

Designing great beers, if you can get past the imperial units, is good.

There's a few threads and a wiki in the articles sections on various books. Loads of good discussion there.
 
Brewing Classic Styles lists extract recipes but also has an all-grain option. Or, you can just look at the percentages of specialty malts and work from there which is what I do. I think it's a good starting point for most styles - I never brew exactly the recipes in there but it's usually my first starting point for working out a recipe to get a rough idea of what will work.

Designing Great Beers is pretty good but focuses too much on presenting data about composition of various recipe sets rather than breaking down individual recipes and explaining the choices involved which I think would be more useful. Still a decent book though, and the first half is pretty good theory.

Depending on where you are at, I would pick DGB to give you the basics of developing recipes and BCS as a reference to give you ideas when wanting to brew a new style.
 
Mike,
I found gordon strongs brewing better beer useful, lots of tips, also radical brewing.
For a very technical look, handbook of brewing. 2 nd ed. Ediited by priest and stewart, rather exxy though.
Get a copy of gordons book from the book depository, pretty cheap and i reckon worth a read.
Cheers
Sean
 
Depends a bit an what you are looking for, if you are interested in how flavourer interact, then most of the above mentioned will be useful. One that I think needs mentioning is BYO 250 Recipes, most are collaborations with the brewers so are generally on the money, by looking at several related recipes for a style you can get a very good idea of what goes with what.
If you are more interested in the nuts and bolts of how brewing works, things like expected yields, how much hot water to add when, the real mechanics of brewing then my first recommendation would be The Handbook of Basic Brewing Calculations from the MBAA, these are the equations that govern brewing, the parts not subject to either opinion or negotiation.
This is how brewing really works, and should be a fundamental part of every brewers development.
Mark
 
Thanks all, I've now spent entirely too much on books! (with more still sitting on the wishlist).

Time to go spend some on beer.
 
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