Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers Author: John Palmer | Language: English | ISBN:
0937381993 | Format: PDF
Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers Description
Review
"If you don't get the water right, neither will you succeed with the beer. Water is a precious commodity, from its availability, through its quality, right to its departure down the drain. It demands respect and that is precisely what it receives in this book, which is packed with valuable information, calculations and lines for brewers large and small." -- Charles Bamforth, Professor of Malting & Brewing Sciences, University of California "In addition to extracting nuggets from the literature, the authors have drawn on the knowledge of experienced brewers ... and those who have developed software for doing some of the complex calculations and experiments. With such a breadth of sources, this book will either answer your brewing water questions or have you well on the way to those answers." -- From the Foreword by A J deLange, Water Researcher/Homebrewer "I have worked with water my entire engineering career and I know the intricacies of typical water treatment and utilisation. Brewing water needs are a unique aspect that have received little research or explanation in the past. This book assembles a wide variety of information focused on the specialised water needs in brewing and makes it accessible to all brewers. The treatment of brewing water can be as simple or complicated as a brewer wants to make it, but any brewer will find things in this book that can make their beer better." -- Martin Brungard, Water Resource Engineer/Homebrewer
About the Author
John Palmer is the best-selling author of How to Brew, and the co-author of Brewing Classic Styles. He is also the co-host the popular brewing podcast, Brew Strong. John is a metallurgical engineer by trade, and is intrigued by the processes of brewing from an engineer’s point of view, including malting, mashing, water chemistry, lautering, clarity, color, and foam retention. John was born in Midland, MI and currently resides in California.
Colin Kaminski’s brewing career started as the product designer at Beer, Beer and More Beer, designing more than 180 products including the Peltier cooled conical fermentor. Colin has written on a variety of topics including lutherie, holography, solar astronomy and beer. He has been the Master Brewer at Downtown Joe’s Brewery since 2003. Colin resides in California - Series: Brewing Elements
- Paperback: 300 pages
- Publisher: Brewers Publications (October 7, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0937381993
- ISBN-13: 978-0937381991
- Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
A much awaited book on water chemistry and treatment for brewers is finally here. Was it worth the wait?
First of all a criticism - the authors, reviewers and forward note editor imply that there has never been a (single) book of its kind covering the vast topic of water chemistry for brewers - at least not in recent times, in English or with the requisite technical depth for professional brewers. Well they all missed a big fish here (I add the same levity they do in using water terms in a humorous way to open up their topics). I refer to the title: Water in Brewing in the European Brewery Convention Manual of Good Practice Series. 2001 Fachverlag Hans Carl ISBN 3-418-00778-3. With no mention of this book in Palmer and Kaminski's work it's a huge oversight on their part. (Furthermore there are other treatises on brewing water treatment as published conference proceedings out there also not referenced by Palmer and Kaminski. So they missed a lot of crucial literature along the way). That being said and, while there is a lot of overlap in coverage of topics in the two volumes discussed here, the new work has brought together a stellar amount of material and reduced it to a level that will - after some effort (it ain't that easy folks to understand this topic - muddy waters always for all of us here) be amenable to novice chemists and will help more brewers understand the calculations that may help them make better beer.
The book covers the usual waves of information - how to read a water report and the importance of the presence or absence of each mineral ion and many organic components (the latter well covered in the EBC manual also).
I'm only into Chapter 4 and I have already got my money's worth from the book in regards to information. While it is a very dry read (pun sort of intended), the information in it is fairly easy to understand. There are obvious topics in here that are geared more towards the professional brewer, with topics about brewery wastewater treatment and high end filtration; but the first seven chapters out of 10 will benefit the homebrewer. Many homebrewers are looking for the "how do I" when it comes to water adjustments, but I come from the camp that wants to know why. Without an understanding of why you are doing something, you don't really understand the changes you are making. I have found a lot of resources online tell you how to adjust your water to met specific numbers, but don't really explain the correlation between the changes you are making.
Be warned though, if you are not really looking for a deeper understanding of water and it's influence on brewing. You may be disappointed in the book. The actual "how to" is chapter 7, which in my opinion, from flipping through the chapter, would be worth the money for the book alone. But again, I think you are missing out on the point of the book because there is plenty of "how to" information on the web.
One person on here so far has said this book is not geared towards the homebrewer, and I think that statement is incorrect. This book is just way more than they were probably looking for in regards to information. Only the last 3 chapters are not geared towards the homebrewer. Well, some of chapter 8 may apply but mostly just the first 7 chapters benefit the homebrewer.
With that said, the whole "Brewing Elements Series" from brewer's publications has been very technical so I don't expect anything less.
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