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CButterworth

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I did extract home brewing on the past, and have just made a couple of extract recipes with speciality grain adjuncts. They're pretty good.

As a pre-Christmas gift, I received a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. So I thought that a couple of home brewing books would be in order.

My thought would be a decent book that can be read by an interested beginner, but not too basic, and maybe a clone book?

So far, my choices are:

John Palmer's "How to Brew" OR
Stephen Snyder's Brewmaster's Bible

I am leaning towards the latter.

PLUS a clone brew book.

Any comments regarding which book (Palmer's or Snyder's)?

Thanks,
Charlie
 
Palmer's How to Brew is a must read in my opinion. You can read a lot of it online but the printed version has a lot mote content.
 
I don't own the Snyder book, but the Palmer How to Brew book is very good. Lots of useful information.

Rick
 
Palmer's book is sort of the de-rigeur primer.

I've not seen the Snyder book.

There are other books about Brewing Classic Beers by Jamil Z, and Designing Beer Ray Daniels that are highly thought of.

but, since i bet a very large percentage of the population in here has these items on their Christmas Lists, i bet you get a better set of reviews on Wednesday than today.
 
I highly recommend Brewmaster's Bible...I still refer back to it all the time and it is packed with recipies.

:ban:

Designing Great Beers is a fairly deep read and not necessarily for beginners...you should already have a fairly good knowledge of how to compose recipies, etc.

Clone Brews by Tess, etc. is also a decent "clone" manual...of course without buying it, Google works wonders for clone recipies.

Best of juck and Merry Christmas!
 
I have and can highly recommend, "How to Brew" by John Palmer, "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels and "Yeast" by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff. I have a few other books as well but these three always seem to be the ones not left on the bookshelf. While these books may be more in depth than is required for an entry into homebrewing they can take you from your first batch to as far as you want to take this hobby.

Happy Holidays everyone,
 
Read Palmer. In my opinion, it is by far the best "how to" hat your money can buy. It takes you from beginning steps through designing recipes, in an easy-to-understand manner. From there you can branch out ... If you need to.
 
I have and can highly recommend, "How to Brew" by John Palmer, "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels and "Yeast" by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff.

Agree.
These great books, nit just to read but to have them at hand, there is always something that you're interested for.
 
Well I ended up ordering the John Palmer book and Graham Wheeler's book on how to brew British real ales as it has a bunch of recipes that are extract based, which seem like a good place to start.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Charlie
 
Palmer's book is here so, don't spend where you don't have to. You can find a recipe for just about any clone you want to attempt on the web. I do have a few books by Michael Jackson that I received as gifts over the past couple of years. They're fun to thumb through!
 
"How to Brew" is by far my favorite. I tend to read some of it every day and learn something from it everyday. I will have to check out the "Brewmasters Bible."

As for recipes you need to turn no further than HBT.
 
I would recommend the latest compilation of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian and the follow up to it, The Homebrewers Companion. The latter get into brewing a bit deeper.
 
Palmer's book is here so, don't spend where you don't have to. You can find a recipe for just about any clone you want to attempt on the web. I do have a few books by Michael Jackson that I received as gifts over the past couple of years. They're fun to thumb through!

The paper (3rd edition) of the book is MUCH MORE EXTENSIVE than the online free version. I highly recommend purchasing it.
 
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian and How to Brew by John Palmer, in that order, seem to be the best way to get started. The advanced book recommendations here seem to be good.

Also hear good things about Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels is a great next step.
 
Brewmasters Bible is mostly just recipes, cool enough but not helpful in developing new skills. Plus most are not all grain. I have that book and never use it. Radical Brewing is awesome and John Palmer seems solid.
 
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