Suggested prereq for reading "Water"?

[hardrain]

Hey all, can anyone recommend a good (and hopefully free) background source of info for someone who wants to better understand Palmer & Kaminski's Water brewers book? Somewhat readable book, online course, ect?

I've given Water two different shots but feel like a lack of background chemistry knowledge (which Palmer readily admits is required in his intro) is preventing a lot of it from soaking in.

 

[BigEd]

Have you read Palmer's "How to Brew"? How about Greg Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer", either the original or revised edition? Both of these books have very good brewing water information (Noonan is a bit more advanced).

They say (whoever they are) that brewing is 50% science and 50% art. Understanding the science is going to let you experience the art.

 

[hardrain]

I've read How to Brew a couple of times. I actually have Noonan's book as well, but it's on the to do list. Maybe I'll start there. I feel like the chemical explanations are french at this point, and like you said it would be nice to have a deeper understanding of that dynamic so I can mess with it .

It would still be nice to get a basic (non-brewing) chemistry refresher somehow for the more complex brewing texts but I'm not sure the best approach there.