Question about the wiki

Not having seen a 'wiki discussion' section, I decided 'general' was best. And rather than jsut changing as I saw fit I thought that this deserved some discussion.


I read through a portion of the wiki as written and realized that it was largely formatted as an encylopedia. This is good but what it doesn't do is provide much in the way of 'how to'.


The question is: does HBT want to have a 'how to brew' section of the wiki? We all know that John Plamer has a great manual on 'how to' and I never want take anything away from him (although Charlie has a special place in my heart sicne his is the first book of brew my father gave me). At the same time it's not as though the bunch of us here at HBT aren't as capable as Mr Palmer. Heck, communally we might have more actual experience than he does.

So i guess the point of discussion is: should the wiki have a 'step-by-step how to brew' section in it or should it remain an encylopedic reference?

Personally I don't see what would be wrong with a how-to-brew article. I think it would be extremely long so breaking it up into multiple article pages would be a good idea. Hot-linking all the special terms would be a must since it would be complete noobs reading it. FYI we've been using the community portal (and all the various talk pages) to discuss changes and projects on the wiki. Just register as a user and you can join the free-for-all.

Yeah-- I'm just not seeing any real discussions there. (Maybe I'm jsut not seeing them) I think that this decision isn't one to enter into without discussing it first.


Hot linking the terms is certainly a great idea and would, in fact, be an improvement over other online references.

Well, I think that if you read the "process" page, it lays out how to brew, just not in the format that you envision.

At the end of the day, it seems like it's a little bit like reinventing the wheel, I guess. Palmer's How To Brew is free on the web to anyone. We could just link directly to that, rather than rewriting it in our own words.

Evan! said:

Well, I think that if you read the "process" page, it lays out how to brew, just not in the format that you envision.

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I saw the 'process' section and it is encyclopedic, which certainly has it's place. The breadth and depth of information in that section makes it too complicated to use as a functional guide.

Evan! said:

At the end of the day, it seems like it's a little bit like reinventing the wheel, I guess. Palmer's How To Brew is free on the web to anyone. We could just link directly to that, rather than rewriting it in our own words.

Click to expand...

From that perspective we should not have any content at all but instead link to all the other resources that already define all the things being defined in our wiki.

First off, Welcome back from the 2-3 month retreat from us.

Yeah we've been working on it to help everybody who is starting out as well as the advanced brewer. Take a look at what Kaisers been doing, I can barely read it. We would love someone to add anything that you don't see. I'm trying to be able to use Booby_M's video but I am having trouble. The best part of the wiki is that anyone can add, or request. We will try to get stuff to help all the homebrewers. True howtobrew is a nice cheap reosurce but it can be outdated, and reads like a book, an instruction area would be nice. Something that we can help all new homebrewers.

Edit: We have the same amount of posts!

Edit:Edit: We also have a thread about it, it's long so you can skip most of it, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21705

kornkob said:

I saw the 'process' section and it is encyclopedic, which certainly has it's place. The breadth and depth of information in that section makes it too complicated to use as a functional guide.

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I suppose it depends on your POV. I could brew from that. Then again, I'd prefer to just consult CJOH.

From that perspective we should not have any content at all but instead link to all the other resources that already define all the things being defined in our wiki.

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Not at all. The one doesn't follow the other, necessarily. Organizing your information in such a way that we have done is, as far as I can tell, pretty unique. I haven't seen a better overall brewing database, to be honest. There are places that excel in certain areas, but this wiki is really great so far.

On the other hand, if anyone feels that they could write a better How-To guide to homebrewing than John Palmer or Papazian, then, by all means...I'm certainly not gonna stop anyone from doing so.

I think a literal step-by-step 'print out and follow me' kind of thing would be awesome. howtobrew is fantastic (I read it back to front 4 or 5 times before I did my first batch) but it is a lot of information to process. Sometimes having something on the counter that says 'now do this' is a great support.

Initially I thought that the brewing process page would serve as a simple how-to with more advanced topic being described in hot-linked sections. But I don't think that works anymore. The brewing process page should be a rough overview of the brewing process and gives you an idea what part of the process the various articles relate to.

I think it would be nice to have a shoty how-to for extract, partial mash and AG brewing. It should be intended to guide the new brewer though the first batch. In addition to that there can be links to more explanation on why things are recommended that way and where a more advanced technique may improve the beer or process.

I plan to do that with lager fermentation where I have short how-to for a simple and foolproof lager fermantation method. Later I then explain how this can be improved to get even better beer but using more advanced techniques.

Kai