Product Description

Want to become your own brewmeister? Homebrewing For Dummies, 2^nd Edition, gives you easy–to–follow, step–by–step instructions for everything from making your first “kit” beer to brewing an entire batch from scratch. Before you know it, you’ll be boiling, bottling, storing, pouring, and kegging your own frothy, delicious suds.

This friendly, hands–on guide walks you through each step in the brewing process at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. It fills you in on all the homebrewing basics with a comprehensive equipment list; instructions on keeping your hardware clean and sanitized; and loving descriptions of the essential beer ingredients, their roles in the brewing process, and how to select the best ingredients for you beer. You’ll also find out about additional ingredients and additives you can use to give your homebrew distinctive flavors, textures, and aromas. Discover how to:

• Set up your home brewery
• Select the best ingredients and flavorings
• Create your own lager, ale, and specialty beers
• Try your hand at cider, and even meade
• Brew gluten–free beer
• Package your beer in bottles and kegs
• Evaluate your beer and troubleshoot problems
• Take part in homebrewing competitions
• Become an eco–friendly brewer

Homebrewing For Dummies, 2^nd Edition is fully updated with the latest brewing techniques and technologies and features more than 100 winning recipes that will have your friends and neighbors singing your praises and coming back for more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114604 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From the Back Cover
The latest on gluten–free, organic, and green brewing

Make your own delicious lagers and ales

Want to become your own brewmeister? This must–have guide gives youeasy–to–follow instructions in everything from brewing and bottling tostoring, pouring, and kegging your own beer. You get the latest on requiredequipment and new brewing methods, as well as over 100 tried–and–true recipes. Plus, you′ll see how to take part in homebrew competitions!

Discover how to:

• Set up your home brewery

• Select ingredients and flavorings

• Brew basic beers,specialty beers, even cider and mead

• Evaluate your beer and troubleshoot problems

• Become an eco–friendly brewer

About the Author
Marty Nachel is an award–winning homebrewer, an AHA/BJCP Certified Beer Judge, and was a beer evaluator at Beverage Testing Institute and the Great American Beer Festival.

Customer Reviews

Just what it says on the cover
Homebrewing for Dummies, reviewed by a self confessed homebrew dummy. The book as a whole is pretty good. it starts simply and continues slowly building on the information already imparted in the early chapters using easy to follow plain english. If you're starting from the position that you know nothing (except for the fact that you don't want to pay supermarket prices for beer) then this is the book for you.

There are some problems for UK readers in that the measurements are in US, i.e. a pint is sixteen fluid ounces rather than the British Imperial 20 oz, and the knock on effect is that the quart is 36oz and the US Gallon is 22oz (a pint and a bit) less than a standard UK Imperial Gallon. To be fair, the author does point this out very early in the book, but the conversions offered are in milliliters, not necessarily workable if you're brewing 20 litres of Ale. All of the temperatures are in Farenheit to complicate matters further and some of the measurement of weights are in 'cups'. A quick tip from me is to get some decent scales that can convert between imperial and metric, a decent thermometer that does Farenheit and Celcius, and a 'cup' measurement from a decent kitchen supplies store. Further, I suggest that you write down your conversions so you can repeat the recipes if they work well, or blame your math for the failure rather than the brew.

The book covers the basics of brewing using kits, the intermediate grain brewers, and the full on from scratch for the advanced brewers. It has a most important section, something that many brewing tomes forget, the bit about drinking the beer - dispensing technology, the best glass for a specific beer, and even the suggestion that you imbibe your own product while bottling and fermenting to while away the boring bits.

I liked this book, unit conversions aside, and have found the recipe section to be inspiring. My neighbours can look forward to being experimented upon!

Great brewing guide
This book addresses all aspects of homebrewing that the beginning homebrewer might encounter. It details the equipment that is needed for the novice homebrewer through the advanced needs of a brewmaster. Many recipes are provided as well as Internet links. A step by step guide on how to brew a batch of beer is given for the beginner, intermediate and advanced homebrewer. This is particularily nice.

A good book but beware
This is an exellent introduction to beer making. Everything is covered form beginner to advanced levels. I have made some most excellent beer at the intermediate level (using malt extract) without even bothering with beginner level recipies. Marty Natchel writes with clarity and humour.

A couple of points to think about though.

Why are all the recipies only given in ounces, pounds, cups, (what is that all about?) pints and gallons. Surely a half competent publisher would have produced the recipies in SI units as well, if for no other reason than to help sell the book in every other country in the world other than the US (there's quite a lot of people out there who aren't American).

The other thing is that I've been happily converting a gallon to 4.5 liters. Then it struck me that American pints are different to British pints, so are American gallons different as well? It turns out that they are, an American Gallon is only worth about 80% of a British (Imperial) gallon (I thought that Americans always think big?). Even with my miscalculations I still haven't had any major disasters, but it goes to show that some small adjustments to include SI measurements would greatly enhance the book.

I've done a fair bit of microbiology in my time and I'm a bit of a pedant, so I get annoyed with people using the word 'bacterias'. This is a tautology, bacteria is the plural. One bacterium, two bacteria, it just sounds (and looks) stupid to say/write 'bacterias'. I must say that I have only found this instance once and on other occasions the word bacteria is used correctly, so, to be fair, maybe it's just a typing error.

On the whole a well written and lucid book, much better than other '...for Dummies' books I've got. Highly recomended. Enjoy your first homebrew, and enjoy this book, I have.