Brewing Master

Question:

: If you want one book that does it all, do yourself a favour and pick : up a copy of Ray Daniel’s "Designing Great Beers".   You’ll thank : yourself many times over.

Does Daniel’s book target all-grain brewers only or does it also include information for the extract brewer? Bear

Response:

: If you want one book that does it all, do yourself a favour and pick : up a copy of Ray Daniel’s "Designing Great Beers".   You’ll thank : yourself many times over. Does Daniel’s book target all-grain brewers only or does it also include information for the extract brewer? Bear

        I also recommend the Daniels book, it’s excellent.  It’s designed for both extract and grain brewers.  However, the extract brewer must at least be willing to use some specialty grains.  He says something to the effect that he will discuss the use of extract and such. —      _     | | Andrew Perron    /     /      _|_    | (__O)   _ (___O)(O_) (___O)  | (__O)   |   |_____|

Response:

: Does Daniel’s book target all-grain brewers only or does it also include : information for the extract brewer? It’s undeniably slanted towards the all-grain brewer, but there is still quite a bit of good, useful information for the extract brewer. In one of the earlier chapters, Daniels delves into malt extracts, providing numerous tips & info that could really help an extract brewer dedicated to improving his or her beer. Some of his tips are ones that have also appeared here, or in HBD over the years. For example, do full boils, use malts, use some discretion in choosing malts, etc. Daniels talks about things like browning and why extract brews are often darker than a brewer expects. He also frequently emphasizes that most winning extract recipes do *NOT* use only extracts, but instead are either partial mash, or at least use a sizable amount of fresh grain steeped in the hot liquor (to provide sweetness, color, flavor, plus nutrients such nitrogen—-one of the problems noted by extract brewers is slower fermentations, due largely to a lack of free amino nitrogen, a yeast nutrient). Hope this helps, —Mark "I am the first man south of the Mason-Dixon line to brew a drinkable home-brew."  – H.L. Mencken, in "Heathen Days"

Response:

I’m looking for a good book that gives a good description of all the beer styles.  Important to me is…         – typical grain bill         – characteristics         – history The specs are no biggie since I usually use the current AHA reg’s as a reference point. — —- Dean Carriere Vancouver, B.C.  Canada             Remove the "DELETE" from my return address

Response:

I’m looking for a good book that gives a good description of all the beer styles.  Important to me is…         – typical grain bill         – characteristics         – history The specs are no biggie since I usually use the current AHA reg’s as a reference point.

If you want one book that does it all, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Ray Daniel’s "Designing Great Beers".   You’ll thank yourself many times over. -Alan — Alan McKay http://alpha.rollanet.org/~mckay/brew/tips/

Response:

I’m looking for a good book that gives a good description of all the beer styles.  Important to me is…    - typical grain bill    - characteristics    - history The specs are no biggie since I usually use the current AHA reg’s as a reference point.

The best book I have seen on this subject is Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels (Publisher: Brewers Publications, ISBN: 0-937381-50-0).  Go to http://www.aob.org/bp/dgb.html for the official description. The book starts out talking about how to formulate "recipes" for the different ingredients of brewing (grains, hops, water, and yeast).  I really like the way Mr. Daniels goes about coming up with the grain bill. First you decide on a starting gravity, you then decided on your percentages of grain (i.e. 85% pale, 10% Roasted Barley, 5% Flaked Barley) based on the discussions later in the book.  Once you’ve made these decisions, you then calculate how much of each grain will be required to hit the gravity. The book then goes into each style (though the various Belgium styles are absent) and gives a history, followed by look at various recipes for that style from commercial examples and AHA National Homebrew Competition first round winners. Before I bought this book I was just using the recipes from Cat’s Meow. Now I’m doing my own recipes, and I feel my beer has gotten much better. Even if it hasn’t, at least I now understand the why’s and the how’s.  I now know (and can brew) the difference between an a K