Home brew books?

[simo hart]

G'day all,
Iv been brewing from a can and bottling for about tow years now and every time I make a new brew it gets better.
I'm at the point now where I want to upgrade and start doing a full mash and storing in kegs rather than bottling.
Is there a book/bible that anyone can recommend that is a must have for the home brewer and would help make the steps forward?

 

[luggy]

How to brew, by John Palmer is a good first stop

 

[Weizguy]

You can see the Palmer book online for free, or buy the latest version.

A library of brew books is a really good idea. I started with a Wheat Beer -specific book.

There are a number of beginner books, but Palmer is probably better than most for mash beginner to advanced.

Even better are some of the how-to articles on this site and the BIABrewer site, if you choose BIAB.

Welcome to our obsession.

 

[Blind Dog]

I, like many others have heaps of brewing books. Randy Mosher's radical brewing is a favourite as are Gordon Strong's brewing better beer (but only if you're brewing AG or moving that way) and Graham Wheeler's brew your own real ale.

John Palmer's how to brew or Charlie Papazian's complete joy of homebrewing are both great primers.

For beer tales, Charlie Papazian's micro brewed adventures us a good read, although i struggle to comprehend how he still has a functioning liver ...

Byo.com has quite a lot of articles, recipes erc that you can get without subscribing to the magazine, a lot of Jamil Zaniasheff's brewing classic styles book is straight from his beer styles articles for byo

 

[TimT]

I started off doing a few can kit brews, and got sick of that pretty quickly.

I bought Laurie Strachan's Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing for a song and read it straight through - even the boring bits where he just catalogues beer styles, etc. He discusses every aspect of the brewing process, from different styles of mashing through to boiling and hopping, fermenting and priming, and includes recipes of most, (though of course not all - that would be impossible) beer styles at the back. He's vague on some things (I don't think he mentions the brew in a bag style of brewing, though he does mention that you can use stockings....) and I think he tends to underhop his recipes - but the benefit of all this is, he gives you enough basic information for you to figure out your own method.

It's good shit, man.

So I used that as a guide. My first few brews were, of course, crap. But through trial and error I gradually worked out a process....

A brew library is a great asset to have; something to read and re-read and refer back to constantly. All the books above are good, and I'd add Strachan's Guide to that list.

 

[TimT]

I've listed more about my brew library here - I know at least one of those books listed (the guide to old time wines and cordials) are fully available online. Other folks have interesting links too.

 

[simo hart]

Thanks guys great help, much appreciated!