The Big Book of Brewing

This is the classic book for any really enthusiastic and ambitious home brewer...the person who wants to brew high quality "true" beers using real hops and grains, rather than by using more easily-handled kits and powdered or liquid malt extracts. The author explains to beginners and experts alike a simple method of "mashing" for producing the finest flavoured beers, ales, stouts and lagers from all-grain ingredients, just like the professionals do. It is simply the most advanced and comprehensive book on the subject for the amateur. - The language of the brewer - Brewing quality beer - Commercial brewing - Equipment - Your first brew - Easy recipes - Systems of mashing and sparging - Real ingredients - Buying malt - Brewing process - Problems - Advanced recipes - The best book on "mashing" ever published! First published by Argus Books in 1985, this classic home brewing manual has been out of print in the UK for over a decade. During that period, enthusiasts and home brew shops have been importing the US edition in order to keep its essential wisdom alive within the hobby.

Table of Contents:
Recipes in This Book. Language of the Brewer. Brewing Your Quality Beer. Brewing Quality Beer. Commercial Brewing Process. Equipment. Your First Brew. Easy Recipes. Mashing. Brewing Ingredients. Malt. Coloured Malts. Malt Adjuncts. Sugar. Hops. Water. Yeast. Brewing Process. Cleaning. Malting. Crushing the Malt. Mashing. Sparging. Hydrometer. Degrees of Extract. Boiling. Cooling. Fermentation. Finings. Bottles Beer. Draught Beer. Beer From the Wood. Maturing Your Beer. Serving and Drinking. Problems. Advanced Recipes. Pale Ale. Light Ale. Bitter. Lager. Mild Ale. Brown Ale. Sweet Stouts. Irish Stout. Barley Wine. Conversion Tables. Useful Data Index.

About the Author :
Dave Line was a British beer authority. An electrical engineer by profession, he is regarded as a pioneer in home brewing during the 1970s because at the time home brewing as a hobby was in its infancy. At the time of his death in 1979 he was 37, living in Southampton, was married and had a son. In 1963 it had become free to homebrew in the UK, previously requiring an annual 5 shilling licence, but would not yet become legal in the U.S. until President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law in 1978 legalizing it. People wanted to brew beer that matched the quality of shop-bought beer. In this, his first book The Big Book of Brewing, Dave Line helped people to begin to reach the quality they were looking for, by using ingredients and processes that were used in breweries, with simple homebrewing equipment. At the time people were not getting satisfactory results, because they were using substandard ingredients, low quality syrups or beer kits, baker's yeast, and were not technically informed in the processes of brewing. He advocated the use of proper brewer's yeast, whole-grain barley malts, whole hops, and even went into simple analysis and comparison of the chemistry of water used for brewing different beers, and rudimentary water treatment. He also encouraged sterilisation and proper cleaning of equipment. He was a regular contributor to The Amateur Winemaker magazine, and in a decade, probably had more recipes published than anyone else.