Winemaking: From Grape Growing to Marketplace Review

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(More customer reviews)This book touches on all parts of the winemaking business from vineyard costs to winery costs and designs to marketing your wines. It has a good section on analytical testing procedures and 50 pages of charts, tables and conversions that come in handy.
The section on vineyard costs details year by year expenses from start-up through year 7. I also found the feasibility and finance section very helpful in starting up my own winery. The section on government regulations was very helpful in warning any prospective winery owners of what the ATF and state regulators expect. There are plenty of examples of good record keeping that various governments expect you to keep on hand at all times.
Of course this book also has 117 pages of good winemaking details along with good sections on microbiology, winery equipment, barrels and label designs. If this book has any obvious fault it would be that it does not go deep enough into some of these subjects, but then it would be thousands of pages long instead of the 440 pages it is.
An all around great book on winemaking and the rest of the business that goes with a winery and it's operation. This book has lots of good business information in it that I have not seen in any other winemaking book. I recommend it for anyone who not only wants to make great wine but also is serious about starting his own commercial winery.

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Winemaking is an excellent resource for anyone making wine or seriously considering it. Beginning with the history of vines and wines, the book covers the growing of grapes, the process of making wine, specific types of wine, issues in marketing, and practical guidance on getting started, constructing a winery, and compliance with the law. Several appendices provide equipment sources, analytical procedures, scientific data, and a glossary. An accessible quick reference on enology, the new edition will include new information on marketing wines and on the use of computers in viticulture and winemaking.

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The Everything Homebrewing Book: All you need to brew the best beer at home (Everything Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I enjoyed reading this book. It has some good recipes in it. I have read John Palmer's How to Brew book and if I could only could purchase one book I would get that one. Palmer's book had some more details that you may or may not be interested in. I enjoyed this book more than The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition because it didn't have "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" repeated over and over again. The book did give me some other ideas and I think I will make a fermentation chiller sometime (plans not in book but son of fermentation chiller and others available on the internet). Will be making the bourbon vanilla imperial porter next week and then the evil twin. Not at all disappointed in purchasing this book.

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There?s no place like home for brewing beer. In this book, you learn the secrets of the master brewers?and how you can brew you own beer yourself. Beginners and more experienced homebrewers alike will benefit from the expert tips and fresh ideas in this easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide. With this book, you learn how to:
Choose among barley, hops, and malts
Master the chemistry of homebrewing
Take the appropriate cleaning and sanitizing steps
Adapt the best recipes to their personal tastes
Enter (and win!) beer competitions
Featuring 100 delicious recipes, this guide is all you need to ferment endless brewing possibilities. Cheers!

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Home Brewing with BeerSmith: How to Brew and Design Great Beer at Home Review

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(More customer reviews)The sad part of this book is that it really does have the potential to be a five-star book, but it falls short in many areas. It feels like an early draft (no pun intended) copy. With a good publisher and a good re-working, it could become a must-have book for homebrewers....
* This book is self-published and printed on demand by Amazon, so the book may take up to three weeks to be delivered; this is not clear from the listing on Amazon. Also, the formatting is done by the writer as far as I can tell (which is definitely not up to the quality of a book released from a publisher.) For example, the text is fully justified but it doesn't appear that any kerning has been applied; so this can be a little distracting compared to text that has been properly typeset.
* I am always leery of someone that insists on including PhD after his or her name--especially when they never mention what school they graduated from or what their major was. What you write is either good or it isn't. Adding three letters after your own name usually means you feel insecure about something (the exception is academic articles). A doctorate in computer science doesn't mean that you know more about brewing beer than anyone else.
* This book is exactly what it says it is--a compilation of blog entries. So there isn't a great deal of continuity from entry to entry and the entries were never written with the intent of ending up in a book.
* No pictures. Not a problem for a novel, but a severe limitation for a book on brewing. 'nuff said.
* It isn't clear who the intended audience for this book is. Beginning brewers? Intermediate? Advanced? This is basically Dr. Smith's notebook in printed form, so there are definitely some good nuggets of information to be mined from this book.
* Too much detail in some areas and not enough in others. For example, the author explains recirculation/vorlauf, but never mentions either term. Additionally, section on styles are just overviews, observations and suggestions; so most people would not be able to brew a beer to style using this book alone (if you could, you wouldn't need this book anyway).
* Lots of small typos. That being said, it never detracts from the information that is being presented. This book is sadly in need of a professional editor and a technical editor (or two).
* The formatting never complements the material being presented. It is barebones at best. Check out Lewis & Young's Brewing, 2nd ed., to see what a print-on-demand book can be when it shines.
* When a book has the name of a product (BeerSmith in this case), then I at least expect a chapter or an appendix (or two) about the software--how to obtain it, who could benefit from it and why, basic instructions and a couple of tutorials perhaps? Why miss such a great opportunity to proselytize a great product? BeerSmith (Download... CD Coming Soon on Amazon) I am sure many people would prefer to buy the CD through Amazon, but it has said CD coming soon since the entry was posted over a year ago....
There are many great books out there for homebrewers, and this isn't quite one of them yet. I feel that the other reviewers are fans of the author's software; and thus, they are fans of the book. In fact, all of the other reviews are copied from the author's website!
This is NOT a book for beginning brewers, so look elsewhere first. Would I buy this book again? Yes! Because I am always searching for new information and have most books published about brewing in English under US$150 in the US and UK over the past 20 years--and there is some good information in the book. Would I recommend the book to most other brewers? Probably not yet.
Here are a few books you might enjoy before this one:
+ How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time, John Palmer (the standard book for homebrewers at the moment)
+ The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book), Charlie Papazian (the old standard, but many still use it-- it is no longer state of the art)
+ Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass, Randy Mosher
+ Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew, Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer
+ Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles, Ray Daniels
+ Brewing Better Beer: Master Lessons for Advanced Homebrewers, Gordon Strong
I wanted to give this book 3.5 stars. I can't wait for the 2nd edition!
UPDATES:
14JUL11: Added links to suggested reading. Added Brewing Better Beer to suggested reading. Deleted info related to other software programs.
19JAN11: Updated information including comments referring to BeerSmith and other software. I DO like this book and have read it completely through twice and referred to it many times.
02DEC10: It looks like the BeerSmith program has a lot of fans and they have voted this review as "not helpful", but look at the "depth" of the other reviews and judge for yourself. I look forward to comments on my review to point out where I have made any incorrect observations.
11MAR11: Minor changes.

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Are you looking to take your beer brewing from average to outstanding?Would you like to learn the latest brewing techniques?Home Brewing with BeerSmith is a compilation from over 70 of the best articles from the BeerSmith blog on detailed brewing methods, how to design beer recipes, and creating specific beer styles from around the world.This edition includes everything from how to get started with a simple batch to the latest all grain brewing methods, hop techniques, kegging, tips for making better beer, and articles focused around specific beer styles.Its a powerful compilation of brewing knowledge.Brad Smith has written over 125 articles on home brewing, wrote the top selling BeerSmith beer recipe software, and his weekly blog articles and newsletter at BeerSmith.com attract over 50,000 brewers each month.

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How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time Review

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(More customer reviews)Like most homebrewers, I started out with Charlie Papazian's book "The New Joy of Homebrewing". I had the second edition. It was a good book, but comparing it to this text, it seems hopelessly dated.
With the explosion of microbreweries across the country, lots of people got turned on to GOOD beer - and many of those looked into homebrewing. With so many people trying different methods and equipment, over time, brewing became simpler and much of what was deemed necessary in the earlier days was discarded. Many of the techniques and equipment listed here are the results of years of trial-and-error streamlining by other homebrewers. In addition, there's never been so many resources available via mail order and on the net. Homebrewing really is easy at this point.
This is the best basic brewing text I've found. You can start with it by making extract only beers, graduating to specialty grains in addition to extract, then to all grain brewing and making your own recipes and beer styles. The book is linear, presents the information as you need it and the information ranges from the most basic (like sanitation) to as technical as you could possibly want (water chemistry).
For years I've been an extract and specialty grain brewer. I never completely understood the process of all-grain brewing until I bought this text. It gave me the courage to build my own lautering tun and brew my first batch of beer made completely from scratch. It was a pale ale, nothing exotic, but man was it good beer. Check out the author's website and read the first edition online. The second edition is improved, so if you like the online text buy the hard copy book.
There are other good texts out there (the author lists many of them in the back of the book) but if you only want one homebrewing text, buy this one. It's a shame that Amazon doesn't carry it anymore. Track it down.

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Everything needed to brew beer right the first time. Presented in a light-hearted style without frivolous interruptions, this authoritative text introduces brewing in a easy step-by-step review.

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