Homebrew Beer Blog

Here's my library of homebrewing books. I've been doing a bunch of reading between the latest fermentation experiments and preparing for the BJCP exam. Some of these books I got as gifts, some as a toss in for free Amazon shipping, so I forget what I've got sometimes. And no, I haven't read all these. The "good" ones I've gone through with a highlighter, some I've read a few times. Some I've just used as a topic reference, and others are untouched and waiting for a rainy day/trip.

So, I put them all together and figured I might as well put them up here. As time goes on I'll do mini reviews of them, but for now, here's the bibliography. I've linked them to Amazon, and there's some good deals on used books for some of these older ones. As a bonus, if you buy from clicking here, I get a nickel or something.

If you've got a suggestion, let me know!

04/23/08 - Update Added:

Evaluating Beer
Standards of Brewing
Vienna-Marzen-Oktoberfest
Prost!

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Analysis of Brewing Techniques (1997), Fix & Fix

Big Book 'O Beer (2004), Swierczynski
Beer Enthusiast’s Guide (1994), Smith
Beer School (2007), Bloomberg and Potter
Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing (2003), Bamforth - Reviewed
Brew Chem 101 (1996), Janson
Brew Like a Monk (2005), Hieronymus
Brewing (2001), Lewis & Young
Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy (1994), Line
Brewing Classic Styles (2007), Zainasheff
Brewing Up a Business (2005), Calagione
Brewmaster's Table (2005), Oliver

Clonebrews (1998), Szamatulski
Complete Joy of Homebrewing (2003), Papazian
Complete Meadmaker (2003), Schramm

Designing Great Beers (2000), Daniels

Essays in Brewing Science (2006), Lewis & Bamforth
Evaluating Beer (1993), Brewers Publications

Great Beer Guide (2000), Jackson

Homebrewer's Garden (1998), Fisher & Fisher
Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide (1995), Miller
Homemade Root Beer, Soda, & Pop (1998), Cresswell
How to Brew (2006), Palmer

Microbrewed Adventures (2005), Papazian

Michael Jackson's Beer Companion (1997), Jackson - Reviewed
Michigan Breweries (2006), Ruschmann & Nasiatka

New Brewing Lager Beer (1996), Noonan
New World Guide to Beer (1988), Jackson

Principles of Brewing Science (1999), Fix

PROST! - The Story of German Beer (1998), Dornbusch

Radical Brewing (2004), Mosher

Standards of Brewing (2002), Bamforth

Ultimate Beer (1998), Jackson

Vienna-Marzen Oktoberfest - Classic Beer Styles 4 (1991), Fix

Wild Brews (2005), Sparrow - Reviewed

A couple requests on my adventures, so an quick update.

Thursday I'm planning a full double batch. This should test the theories in production. I started the yeast on Sunday and will be ready to go. One will get 12 ppm and the other will be saturated.

The test batches don't seem to offer glaring results. I need to really sit down with them and probably pass them around for second opinions. If they have EA, either it's slight, or something is really confusing me. I'm calling the first batch inconclusive since there's weird stuff going on, but seems negative for EA. The second test batch should be done by now, so I'll pop the top here shortly. I've got some bottles of the first batch carbonating and I'll revisit with some other opinions.

One interesting thing, the super saturated test has a honey-like aroma. At first I didn't know what to make of this, because these are unhopped beers. I thought maybe it was just all that unbalanced malt. Since, I've read that honey aromas could be a sign of oxidation. That's kind of interesting if all that O2 before pitching resulted in oxidization damaged.

Anyway... here's what I've been mulling over. So far, my dissolved O2 tests have just been 1 gallon jugs. These "tests" have kind of taken some notice and may have ran further than they should have. Mostly, I was just testing out the O2 meter and playing around. So, I figured I should try doing this with full 5 gallons in a carboy, and for the heck of it, also in an open bucket. It seams reasonable that a bucket may not hold O2 the same as a carboy, and a lot of brewers use buckets and similarly top shaped conicals.

Two interesting observations... one, a buckets holds on to O2 just as well as a carboy. 24 hours later, the open bucket didn't loose much more O2 than the carboy. In fact, I think it was about the same. Second, greater the O2 pressure, harder it is to oxygenation.

So what does that mean? The batches where I was careful in oxygenating with lower pressure oxygenated fastest. I went lower because I didn't want to over shoot, and where I went higher it was because I wanted to get as much in there quickly. More pressure made bigger bubbles, bigger bubbles left the water faster. This is so obvious, but completely blind before I had a meter to verify. I kind of assumed even though more O2 was leaving the solution, more put into solution would more than compensate. This is interesting, because I know a lot of homebrewers, myself included, who blast O2 thinking they're getting more in there. This is tested using 30, 20, 10, and <5-2 psi. Turning it to just move the needle seemed to oxygenate the best.

So, this could be an interest next batch. The world will right itself if the problem was really oxygenation technique with these lager strains, and not over oxygenation. That makes perfect sense and I can switch gears towards figuring ways to consistently oxygenate wort. However, there could still be something to be found with over oxygenation. I think clearly the O2 isn't going anywhere and all that resulting fermenter growth may not be as desirable as designed growth.

Anyway... there's what I've been chewing on...

A while back I upgraded my chrome taps with nice forward sealing stainless Ventmatics.

These are really cool. They have a great smooth internal design, all stainless, and forward seal. Forward sealing means there isn't any beer sitting in the faucet exposed to the air. That means no mold or flies. It also means the beer doesn't dry up and make your faucets stick. I've seen guys bust their tap trying to un-stick a faucet.

When I got them, the pour was OK. It was better than my old faucets, but didn't quite live up to the hype. A year or so went by and I started tinkering off and on with my pour. I recently revisited this and pulled out all my spouts to do some comparisons. The faucet's spouts are interchangeable and as it turns out, they can significantly change the pour of the beer.

A couple of my Ventmatics came with larger 12.5 mm spouts. I think normally home brewers buy them with 11 mm or 11.75 spouts. The bigger spouts caused my pour to be hollowed, which made for a bunch of foam in the glass. The trick to a nice pour is as little turbulence as possible so not to knock the CO2 out of solution. Initially I thought it was because it was too fast, so I bought longer tubing, which only made the problem worse. Turns out the flow was too slow, so I tried shortening the tubing and that helped, but still no dice since it was flying out of the tap. I tried boosting my serving CO2 and that helped, but then that would make my beer over carbonated. And then I read about different spouts on the Internet.

If I had to guess here the 12.5 mm spouts are better suited for commercial bars where they serve beer with higher carbonation and at higher psi. There's also these 8 mm spouts available. I picked up an 8mm a while back from the manufacturer and it worked great, and then I kind of forgot about it. Recently I picked up another and after some testing, I think this is my solution. For my setup, it made a huge difference. Nice solid pour and I can control the beer's head with the glass tilt.

So, I plan to pick up a couple more of the 8 mm for my other two taps. I serve at about 42-degrees and 10-11 psi, and usually use about 5 feet of 3/16 tubing. This setup is giving my perfect pour. Great faucet, the right spout, the right tubing, right temp, and right pressure.

I picked up my spouts at Northern Brewer (#40050) They also sell the 12.5 spouts if you're interested in checking those out. They may actually work well for a highly carbonated beer. (#40049) A true beer geek should have not only the right glass for the right beer, but also serve it with the right spout. B)

Here is my assortment of spouts. From left to right, 8mm, 11mm, 11.75mm and 12.5mm.

Red’s Rye from Founder's BC in Grand Rapids is an interesting beer and one of my favorite Michigan beers. As the name suggests, it's a red beer with a big hop punch loaded with Amarillo hops. I thought I remember reading the beer is named after Red, who is pictured on the bottle, but I couldn't find a reference of this, so maybe I'm just making it up.

When I went to buy a bottle for this post, Oades was out and the guy said they've been out for a few weeks and he wasn't sure they were going to get any more in. I almost jumped across the counter, but he started talking about it being a seasonal and bla, bla, so he was just misinformed. As it turned out, they got a shipment in later that day and I got a few singles to enjoy.

Labeled as a Red Ale made with Rye, Founder’s describes the beer as Pours a spectacular crimson red with a creamy tan head. Brewed with four varieties of Belgian caramel malts imparting a sweet richness. Red's Rye is impressively balanced with its hop bitterness and huge citrus bouquet achieved from the immense amarillo dry hop. The generous amount of malted rye used accentuates a spicy crisp finish. The specs include 6.4% ABV, 68 IBUs, and cellared for 6 months. That cellaring is kind of interesting on a big hoppy beer.

In my research, Founders holds this recipe close to its vest. Doing some reading, I found it contains about 20% rye malt with Amarillo hops and that’s about all I could find. I took that, the Web description, and sat down with a pint to put together a rough recipe. I then went looking for some input from the brewery.

I got positive feedback on Magnum for bittering and Amarillo throughout for flavor/aroma. They also indicated the malts were US Pale 2-row, CaraPils, a light crystal, dark crystal, and my additions of Aromatic and CaraMunich seemed fine. They also said to scale back my rye malt from 20% overall, so I put it in at about 20% of the base malt. I figured in an OG of 1.063 with 68 IBUs, 17 SRM. They also said to ferment it a little warmer than 67, so I’ll guessed 68 with WLP001.

So, there’s info from the brewery for anyone looking to formulate something. For the heck of it, I'll post my recipe that I'm tossing in the hopper to brew some day, but just note that this is my untried guess to get you going.

OG = 1.063, 68 IBUs, 17 SRM

65.6% US Pale
15.6% Rye
06.3% CaraMunich
04.7% C40
03.1% C120
03.1% CaraPils
01.6% Aromatic

Xoz Magnum @ 60
1oz Amarillo @ 20
1oz Amarillo @ 10
1oz Amarillo @ 1
2oz Amarillo @ DH

Mash @ 154
WLP001 @ 68-degrees

What's kind of got me scratching my head is that I'm not counting four caramel malts as described on the Webpage. I don't think of Aromatic as a caramel malt, but maybe it is. Originally I had Special B in the recipe, but it was crossed out by the brewery. Home brewers may want to tinker with the rye additions, and my percentages are just guesses, so use your discretion. If I were to cellar this, I'd probably split the dry hop up to put the second half in when ready to serve. Cheers!

An observation today... The test batch that was saturated with O2 (left) has significantly more yeast than the controlled O2 batch. All that yeast growth is great for making yeast, but I don't think it's so great for making beer...