recomend a good book?

[alcotty321]

CAN ANYONE RECOMEND A GOOD BOOK FOR A BEGINNER ?

[RichardG]

Two immediately spring to mind. Firstly, the old classic by Grham Wheeler 'Brew Your Own Real Ale At Home' (or what-ever the exact title is!), and John Palmer's book 'How to Brew'. The former gives a very good, concise explaination of the brewing process, as well as many recipes you can try. The later goes into much, much more detail (probably too much in my opinion) but is none-the-less useful. However, be aware that he uses American measurements, and has a lot of ideas that may not find much favour here, e.g., adding the grain to the mush tun, then the brewing liquor (I'd say virtually everyone here does it the other way round, unless they're under-letting) and concepts such as Hot Side Aeration, which I don't really believe is a issue, and I suspect many others don't either. Having said all that, it was the first brewing book I got, and it taught me alot about the brewing process.

[Rubbery]

+1 for "Brew Your Own British Real Ale" by Graham Wheeler.

[critch]

+1 for graham!

heres john palmers e book linkhttp://www.howtobrew.com/ its an earlier edition of his book iirc

[DerbyshireNick]

On this subject, is there a recipe book considered to be the holy grail around these parts?

I have seen a few name dropped but would ideally just like to go for the one that is considered "the best" to begin with.

Cheers

[126mark]

One more vote for Graham Wheeler's book. Lots of recipes. Not brewed a bad one from it yet - currently have 5 different beers from in my shed. All lovely.

[DerbyshireNick]

"Brew Your Own British Real Ale" by Graham Wheeler = ordered.

The reviews on amazon were questioning the use of white sugar but confirmed the results were good regardless, anyone any thoughts on this?

[126mark]

Of the 10 or so beers I've brewed from this book, only one (Adnam's Broadside) required sugar. I actively avoided the beers that called for sugar, but the Broadside was good nonetheless. I guess with a bit of maths you could adjust the amount of pale malt going into a beer that requires sugar, although this would change the taste of the beer slightly.

[critch]

grahams recipes where done so itd be easy to get ingredients.there wasnt the burgeoning internet brewing scene when they were written,hell there wasnt even the internet so brewing sugars could have been difficult to get

[alcotty321]

EBay , 5 quid , cheers !

[DerbyshireNick]

Ah, I wast aware it was so old critch, the fact its still in publication says it all.

I will probably just avoid the sugar recipes for now but have no objection to replacing with malts as I don't have a need to produce an exact clone anyway, more an "inspired by".

Cheers guys.

[GrowlingDogBeer]

I like to avoid sugar in beer, so if doing a Wheeler recipe requiring sugar I usually just increase the Pale Malt to achieve the correct Gravity.

I tend to tweak all the recipes a little bit, I don't think I've ever brewed one exact, but then you can't really as you have to take account of some of the brewing variables.

i.e. The efficiency of your brewery, especially the Mash,

the AA of the Hops you have bought, this doesn't matter too much on the late additions, but can make a significant difference on the bittering hops.

I do think the Wheeler book is the best starter book.

[Horatio]

+ 1 for graham's books.

With regards the sugar issue I’ve just been reading an interesting piece on the use of sugar. I used to use sugar a lot as I started with the Dave Line books but now try not to use any at all. This piece below makes a good point about it not so much being the use of sugar but the misuse of it in brewing that causes concern. It seems to be somewhat of a stigma due to the old Boots type kits where a massive amount of alcohol was derived from white sugar. A lot of commercial brews use small (ish) amounts of sugar to good effect, giving subtle flavour differences; well read the article...

http://www.cascadiabrew.com/understandi ... sugars.asp

[FUBAR]

+1 for Grahams book