Best book for first time brewer

[agrippi]

My wife got me the 5-gallon home brew kit (by Monster Brew) and I'm excited...although a bit intimidated at the moment. Just wondering if you all would recommend an easy to read book before brewing my first batch. If so, which book would you recommend? The information that came with the kit is pretty minimal...

Also, is it possible to just do a one gallon batch in this kit, or do I have to do 5-gallons every time? Just seems like I should try to brew a few smaller batches to get familiar with the process before botching an entire batch ;-)

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

 

[Scriv]

How to Brew by John Palmer

 

[hockeybrewer]

+1 on palmer. Its practically the homebrew bible.

 

[Kent88]

Charlie P's The Joy of Homebrewing. I think most of Palmer's book is free online.

You'll probably want to brew that kit pretty soon, if you're that intimidated by it ask a buddy who homebrews (or find a local homebrew club and make friends with someone) who can help you brew that up.

Through places like Northern Brewer you can buy 1-gallon kits, search around and I'm sure there are more. Unless they live in a tiny apartment many people don't stick to batches that small (I know if I moved into a decent sized house I'd go all 3-gallon) so keep that in mind before you go crazy with the 1 gallon equipment.

 

[feinbera]

Five gallons isn't really that much beer... you'll get about two cases and change. Given you'll spend close to a full day brewing, and probably close to another full day when all is said and done bottling, cleaning bottles, and other random stuff, the two sixpacks you'll get from a gallon batch might not seem worth your while?

Anyway, yeah, I started with Papazian, and Palmer's online version ain't a bad reference, either, though both are a little dated. They won't teach you to make bad beer, but they teach you things that have since been found not to be worth the bother, and leave out other things that aren't too much effort but help a lot.

One challenge with books is, there's almost too much information, in a way – there are a lot of things which will turn decent beer into good beer, or good beer into great beer, but only a few that are so crucial that they'll be the difference between decent beer and bad beer. Two things you'll want to nail, no matter what technique you're using, are:

1. Cleanliness and sanitation: gotta make sure you get rid of the wild bugs, they won't poison you, but they will make your beer gross.
2. Temperature control: yeasties are picky, they'll throw off weird flavors if they're too hot, and quit altogether if they get chilly.

This isn't to say that things like water chemistry, hop schedule, grain bill, etc, etc, aren't important, but as long as you nail those first two, there's a pretty comfortable margin of error in everything else where you'll still get a beer that's drinkable and more-or-less the style you were aiming for.

 

[Sailingeric]

Welcome to the fun! A really good source is right here. If you can think of a question, do a quick search or ask it and you will find all the answers you are looking for.

 

[BFD_BrewGeek]

+1 on How to Brew by John Palmer: http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html.
The first few chapters get right to the point to walk you through your first extract brew day and fermentation. Then, as you read further, John adds a lot of the theory and details of the brewing arts and sciences to allow the reader to understand why we do what we do...
Good luck, hope your first brew day is fun and relaxing!

 

[Shooter]

Palmer or Papazian will tell you what you need to know. Not sure if it's in print, but Homebrewing for Dummies is actually a pretty well done and straightforward book for getting started.

 

[mfgann]

I agree that "How to Brew" by John Palmer is an excellent book.
You will also find that the first chapter is a quick-start on home-brewing so you can get started with that kit, and read the rest of the book while waiting on the fermentation.

One other thing I would recommend is picking up some "Star San" and using it to sanitize everything. The one batch I had come out bad was my first, when I didn't realize the cleaner wasn't the sanitizer.

Welcome to the hobby!

 

[tsever00]

Mastering Homebrew:The complete guide to brewing delicious beer by Randy Mosher is very good as well. After you have a few brews completed, I would recommend Homebrew Beyond the Basics by Mike Karnowski.

 

[agrippi]

Wow...this an active and friendly forum! Thanks everyone! I'll be sure to take those suggestions and I'm sure I'll be back here to ask more questions when the time comes.

 

[IDoBleedBrew]

Don't let people try and talk you out of doing small batch brewing. It isn't for everybody but maybe you will enjoy it. I do three small 1-gallon batches between every 5-gallon batch. It isn't that economical and yes it takes practically as long to do a 5-gallon batch, but I enjoy it because it gives me the chance to experiment and try lots of different recipes and tweaking without having to worry about bad 5-gallon batches. I'll play around with small batches until I dial it in just like I want and then I'll make a 5-gallon batch once I have the recipe dialed in. It isn't for everyone, but don't knock it until you try it.

I may not be able to go through 5 gallon batches of Saisons, Hefes, Wheat Beers, Kolsches, IPAs, Black IPAs, West Coast IPAs, etc… all within a couple of months, but I can go through a couple of 5 gallon batches and several 1-gallon batches. If you like to experiment and have lots of variety in a short window of time… small batch brewing can be awesome.

As for a book, I agree with the Palmer recommendation, but one of my favorites is Homebrew Beyond the Basics: All-Grain Brewing and Other Next Steps. Papazian's Home Brewing and his Home Brewing Companion are also both great.

 

[Calichusetts]

www.homebrewtalk.com

Started with this site, the wiki on here and links posted by users. By the time I got around to reading the "basic" books, I didn't learn a single thing. After that, Mosher and Palmer for more advance stuff and recipes.