How to Brew - By John Palmer

Site Map
Introduction
Section 1 Brewing Your First Beer With Malt Extract
Section 2 Brewing Your First Extract and Specialty Grain Beer
Section 3 Brewing Your First All-Grain Beer
Section 4 Formulating Recipes and Solutions

Introduction
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Equipment Descriptions

Section 1 - Brewing Your First Beer With Malt Extract

Chapter 1 - A Crash Course in Brewing
1.0 What Do I Do?
1.1 Brew Day
1.2 Fermentation
1.3 Bottling Day
1.4 Serving Day
1.5 Read On! Brew On!
Chapter 2 - Brewing Preparations
2.0 The Road to Good Brewing
2.1 Preparation
2.2 Sanitation
2.2.1 Cleaning Products
2.2.2 Cleaning Your Equipment
2.2.3 Sanitizing Your Equipment
2.3 Record Keeping
Chapter 3 - Malt Extract and Beer Kits
3.0 What is Malt?
3.1 Beer Kit Woes
3.2 Shopping for Extracts
3.3 Finding a Good Kit
3.4 How Much Extract to Use
3.5 Gravity vs. Fermentability
Chapter 4 - Water For Extract Brewing
4.0 The Taste of Water
4.1 Home Water Treatment
4.2 Water Chemistry Adjustment for Extract Brewing
Chapter 5 - Hops
5.0 What Are They
5.1 How Are They Used
5.2 Hop Forms
5.3 Hop Types
5.4 Hop Measurement
5.5 Hop Bittering Calculations
Chapter 6 - Yeast
6.0 What Is It?
6.1 Yeast Terminology
6.2 Yeast Types
6.3Yeast Forms
6.4Yeast Strains
6.4.1 Dry Yeast Strains
6.4.2 Liquid Yeast Strains
6.5 Preparing Yeast and Yeast Starters
6.6 When is My Starter Ready to Pitch
6.7 Yeast from Commercial Beers
6.8 Support Your Local Micro
6.9 Yeast Nutritional Needs
6.9.1 Nutrients
6.9.2 Oxygen
6.9.3 Aeration is Good, Oxidation is Bad
Chapter 7 - Boiling and Cooling
7.0 First Recipe
7.1 Beginning the Boil
7.2 Hop Additions
7.3 The "Hot Break"
7.4 Cooling the Wort
Chapter 8 - Fermentation
8.0 Some Misconceptions
8.1 Factors for a Good Fermentation
8.1.1 Yeast Factors
8.1.2 Wort Factors
8.1.3 Temperature Factors
8.2 Re-defining Fermentation
8.2.1 Lagtime or Adaptation Phase
8.2.2 Primary or Attenuative Phase
8.2.3 Secondary or Conditioning Phase
8.3 Conditioning Processes
8.4 Using Secondary Fermentors
8.5 Secondary Fermenter vs. Bottle Conditioning
8.6 Summary
Chapter 9 - Fermenting Your First Beer
9.0 Choosing Your Fermenter
9.1 Transferring the Wort
9.2 Location
9.3 Conducting the Fermentation
9.4 How Much Alcohol Will There Be?
Chapter 10 - What is Different for Brewing Lager Beer?
10.0 Yeast Differences
10.1 Additional Time
10.2 Lower Temperatures
10.3 Autolysis
10.4 Yeast Starters and Diacetyl Rests
10.5 When to Lager
10.6 Aagh! It Froze!
10.7 Maintaining Lager Temperature
10.8 Bottling
Chapter 11 - Priming and Bottling
11.0 What You Need
11.1 When to Bottle
11.2 Bottle Cleaning
11.3 What Sugar Should I Prime With?
11.4 Priming Solutions
11.5 Using PrimeTabs
11.6 Bottle Filling
11.7 Priming and Bottling Lager Beer
11.8 Storage
11.9 Drinking Your First Homebrew

Section 2 - Brewing Your First Extract-and-Specialty-Grain Beer

Chapter 12 - What is Malted Grain?
12.0 Barley Malt Defined
12.1 Malt Types and Usages
12.2 Other Grains and Adjuncts
12.3 Extraction and Maximum Yield
12.4 Extract Efficiency and Typical Yield
12.4.1 Table of Typical Malt Yields
12.5 Mash Efficiency
12.6 Planning Malt Quantities for a Recipe
Chapter 13 - Steeping Specialty Grains
13.0 Why? Why Not!
13.1 Understanding Grain
13.2 Mechanics of Steeping
13.3 Example Batch

Section 3 - Brewing Your First All-Grain Beer

Chapter 14 - How the Mash Works
14.0 An Allegory
14.1 Mashing Defined
14.2 The Acid Rest
14.3 Doughing In
14.4 The Protein Rest and Modification
14.5 Starch Conversion/Saccharification Rest
14.6 Manipulating the Starch Conversion Rest
Chapter 15 - Understanding the Mash pH
15.0 What Kind of Water Do I Need?
15.1 Reading a Water Report
15.2 Balancing the Malts and Minerals
15.3 Residual Alkalinity and Mash pH
15.4 Using Salts for Brewing Water Adjustment
Chapter 16 - The Methods of Mashing
16.0 Overview
16.1 Single Temperature Infusion
16.2 Multi-Rest Mashing
16.3 Calculations for Boiling Water Additions
16.4 Decoction Mashing
16.5 Summary
Chapter 17 - Getting the Wort Out (Lautering)
17.0 Aspects of Lautering
17.1 A Good Crush Means Good Lautering
17.2 Getting the Most From the Grainbed
Chapter 18 - Your First All-Grain Batch
18.0 Preparation
18.1 Additional Equipment
18.2 Example Recipe
18.3 Partial Mash Option
18.4 Starting the Mash
18.5 Conducting the Mash
18.6 Conducting the Lauter
18.7 Options For Next Time

Section 4 - Formulating Recipes and Solutions

Chapter 19 - Some of My Favorite Beer Styles and Recipes
19.0 A Question of Style
19.1 Ales vs. Lagers
19.2 Style Descriptions
19.3 Ale Styles
19.4 Lager Styles
Chapter 20 - Experiment!
20.0 Just Try It
20.1 Increasing the Body
20.2 Changing Flavors
20.3 Using Honey
20.4 Toasting Your Own Malt
20.5 Developing Your Own Recipes
Chapter 21 - Is My Beer Ruined?
21.0 (Probably Not)
21.1 Common Problems
21.2 Common Off-Flavors

Appendices

Buy the print edition
Appendix A - Using Hydrometers
Appendix B - Brewing Metallurgy
Appendix C - Chillers
Appendix D - Building a Mash/Lauter Tun
Appendix E - Metric Conversions
Appendix F - Recommended Reading

Contents