how did you learn

ok this should be interesting im looking for an awesome source to learn from any suggestions ? i bought a book it seems a little advanced like if i had a small brewery it might be good. i need basics i wanna do so much i wanna learn so much . so how did u guy learn when you first started

Many years ago, the store I bought my basic starters kit from included a video, which i found very helpful. Watching someone brew was better than reading about it, for me. The folks at www.basicbrewing.com have a series of dvds for sale, including one for new brewers.

from an lhbs owner who loves to teach, then a member of a brewclub i joined. both awesome teachers. and hundreds of gallons of practice

I learned from:

1. How to Brew (Book)
2. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (Book)
3. The Brewing Network (Podcast)
4. Basic Brewing Radio (Podcast)

And best of all brewing a lot! Making mistakes and learning from them.

Well I started with a Mr Beer kit, that got me real interested so I decided that Mr Beer sucks and I need more knowledge and better equipment. My first book was Papazians Joy Of Home brewing. My Second which I would recommend as a first to anyone is How To Brew by John Palmer. Now its a sickness, my brewery has evolved from a simple Mr Beer kit to a monstrosity that takes up half my garage, and I have at least 20 different books on brewing.

there's a good website Here. Read lots and ask questions.

I agree that watching helped me more than reading at first. I read through How To Brew, then hit YouTube for videos (extract brewing at the time), and spent a lot of time on HBT. Same thing when I went all grain - I went back to YouTube to "see it". After that, everything I read made a lot more sense because I could visualize it.

I got The Joy of Homebrewing and took it from there. That was in 1994. I didn't have internet at that time so everything I learned was out of that book.

I just watched a bunch if youtube videos and studied alot on the net and this forum.

Read, read, read, and then read some more.

1. Joy of Homebrewing
2. How to Brew
3. Radical Brewing
4. Brewing Classic Styles
5. Designing Great Beers
6. This forum
7. Brew Network

Then brew, brew, and brew some more.

I agree with the watching YouTube and other videos as well. I encourage you to understand the pros and cons of everything before you make any major purchases, this will keep you from buying something that you want to replace in short order after you discover it is not right for your process or you out grow it.

Mistakes.

I wish I had found this place sooner. I don't post much but I do read most everything. I feel like I get more beer smart every time I log on. lol

I learned by studing the Northern Brewers homebrewing forum and br reading The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Oh yea and a couple vids on you tube.

I learned from Charlie Papazian. Also, this forum.

1. How to Brew
2. Joy of Homebrewing
3. This forum
4. Guys at LHBS
5. attempts (successful so far) at homebrewing

Started learning by helping a friend brew, then read papazian's book, then filled in the rather large gaps with TONS of info from this forum, and the book, Designing Great Beers.

1. How to Brew
2. This forum
3. Diving right in and going for it

Rinse & repeat

Yeast eats sugar = fermentation = alcohol. The rest is trial and error.

If it sounds like you can brew it, brew it... If you don't like it, store it away for another day. Just take notes!

If I could do it all again, I'd start with "How To Brew" by John Palmer. Portions of this are available online for free. It even helps you get equipment put together. Follow that up with "Brewing Classic Styles" by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff. I've learned 70% of what I know from those two books and this website. The rest comes with experience and more in-depth/style-specific books.

How To Brew on the internet.
Weeks doing searches on the internet on several different topics. I have found that you can find the answer to almost any question on homebrewing by doing a search on a topic followed by typing in "homebrewtalk." For example, "sanitization homebrewtalk" "bottling homebrewtalk." Seriously if this was the first thing people did when they had a question I don't think there would be half as many new threads.

http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

<3 for the complete joy of homebrewing, that's the first brewing book i read and it got me excited about the hobby

I learned EVERYTHING here at HBT. I have since begun reading books and listening to podcasts, but they are just reinforcing what I already learned here.

I second everything everyone has said about CJHB, and the Basic Brewing DVDs, they are great.

I learned from a friend I was stationed on an aircraft carrier with. We were on a 7 month deployment to the gulf and he basically walked me through the whole process every day while we were on watch. I read Paps book probably 30 times cover to cover. The day I got back to the US I bought a kit and started brewing....

So if I were you - if you really want to learn how to brew well, I'd join the Navy, worked really well for me.

1. How to Brew
2. DVD Midwest includes with their equipment kits
3. HBT

COmplete Joy of Homebrewing. And then about 10 years later - this site.

drunkintimmy said:

ok this should be interesting im looking for an awesome source to learn from any suggestions ? i bought a book it seems a little advanced like if i had a small brewery it might be good. i need basics i wanna do so much i wanna learn so much . so how did u guy learn when you first started

Click to expand...

Trial and error. This site helped me a lot as well.

Mine was a three step process
1: Borrowed "How to brew" from my Uncle in law (I now know that the book is available online free)
2: I used YouTube to watch a few videos to clarify things. It always helps to SEE to learn.
3: Homebrewtalk. I have learned most of my "beyond basic brewing" stuff here. It is wonderful.

So, basically I am using the interweb for the entire learning thing.

started with mr beer and the literature in the mr beer box.
my first real homebrew book was The Brewmasters Bible, then I got Complete Joy of Homebrewing.
All of my tips and tricks came from this site

Brew on friends

I read everything I could find on the topic. I read John Palmer's How To Brew online. I took out books at my local library. You'll be surprised to see how many brewing books they have available for free. Also just scouring the web for info has been helpful.

Basically you need to read as much about brewing as you can. You also need to brew a lot.

Read the whole how to brew book one slow day at work. Week later I bought a kit and went at it. I spend A LOT of time on here. I read everything I can about brewing. 1.5 years later I'm running a Brutus 20 HERMS system. Who wulda thunk? Read,Read,Read! I'm basing brewing on my reason to possibly buy a kindle..

Agree with all of the above, Palmer's book is awesome, and with the internet you can be overwhelmed with info. I spent 6 months reading "How to Brew" on the internet..then searched the HBT for answers to stuff I was having a hard time understanding. In retrospect it would have been good to have a home brewer walk me through the process, but Revvy,Yooper,Orfy,Bobby M and a whole host of others on the forum, helped guide me through my first few batches. And now I am hooked.

so pretty much everyone learned from how to brew and the complete joy of homebrewing

98% HBT, and after following a link I found here on HBT, I read the online "How To Brew".