The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book) (Paperback)

~ Charles Papazian (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Charlie Papazian, master brewer and founder and president of the American Homebrewer's Association and Association of Brewers, presents a fully revised edition of his essential guide to homebrewing. This third edition of the best-selling and most trusted homebrewing guide includes a complete update of all instructions, recipes, charts, and guidelines. Everything you need to get started is here, including classic and new recipes for brewing stouts, ales, lagers, pilseners, porters, specialty beers, and honey meads.

The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, third edition, includes:

• Getting your home brewery together: the basics -- malt, hops, yeast, and water
• Ten easy lessons for making your first batch of beer
• Creating world-class styles of beer (IPA, Belgian wheat, German Kölsch and Bock, barley wine, American lagers, to name a few)
• Using fruit, honey, and herbs for a spicier, more festive brew
• Brewing with malt extracts for an unlimited range of strengths and flavors
• Advanced brewing techniques using specialty hops or the all-grain method or mash extracts
• A complete homebrewer's glossary, troubleshooting tips, and an up-to-date resource section
• And much, much more

Be sure to check out Charlie's The Homebrewer's Companion for over 60 additional recipes and more detailed charts and tables, techniques, and equipment information for the advanced brewer.

About the Author

Charlie Papazian is president of the Association of Brewers, an organization which he founded. He is the author of The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing and The Home Brewer's Companion. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 3 Sub edition (September 23, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060531053
• ISBN-13: 978-0060531058
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,363 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide when first starting this hobby, February 3, 2005

By	theoriginalsubguy "theoriginalsubguy" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This truly is an excellent guide for starting the hobby. It certainly was my first brew book. Although my first homebrew store gave me simpler instructions with my first purchase, this book gave me the understanding of what those instructions meant.

The author is very laid back and is a knowledgeable guy that does not want you to quit the hobby because of petty details. Good brewing comes with time. After 11 years of brewing, I realize that this is a hobby, not a job. This is why the author repeats the phrase "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew."

Being pretty savvy with both biology and chemistry, I was the typical case of a worry wort (no pun intended to all grain guys).

My first two brews, when I was too clueless to know what to worry about, came out better than the next 5!

Take this from a decent brewer: You will always want this book in your home. Although I normally use a bit more advanced guides (Designing Great Beers, and New Brewing Lager Beer), there is still some good stuff in this book. I would hardly call it only for beginners. I would say since almost every home brewer bought this book first, it is perceived to be a beginner's book. He has excellent all grain and whole hop data. He has excellent dilution data in case your wort is too concentrated. He hits on some topics that even the more advanced books don't.

This book is for beginning and experienced brewers. After all, after brewing for 11 years I picked up the third edition and found some new stuff I never saw before (hop growing and such)

You will like this book. Trust me, and relax don't worry.......


Hint: If you don't understand the terminology of your new hobby at first, use the glossary in the back of the book or an online site such as www,beertown,org or www,howtobrew,com

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Well Done Update of a Classic, November 3, 2003

By A Customer

~As a typical homebrewer I enjoy reading as many books about the art as I can find. I was a big fan of the 2nd E of this book. That book got me started. Unfortunately it did go out of date... I am now happy to report that C.P. has done a great job updating his book. It has new information on extracts, hops, yeast, the works. Yet, the basic brewing technique is relatively unchanged. Papazian's writing is easy to read and I enjoy the laid-back style. The tables make more sense now (some~~ minor changes) and the recipes are also nicely revamped. I recommend this book to anyone interested in getting started with homebrewing.~

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thick Book on an Easy Topic, May 20, 2005

By	Kuru (Seattle) - See all my reviews

There's no question but that this book has been the Bible for many homebrewers. However, beginners should know that the instructions for extract brewing can quite adequately be set out in about 2 or 3 pages. Extract brewing is barely more difficult than baking a cake, so producing a whole book on the topic requires somewhat the same type of padding as occurs in diet books. The short instruction sheets my homebrew store supplied were plenty adequate to teach the topic. Some of the instructions Mr. Papazian gives are simply more complicated than they need to be. For instance, he gives detailed instructions on taking hydrometer readings to determine when secondary fermentation is complete. A much easier method, which I've used reliably in many dozens of homebrew batches, is simply to watch the bubbles in your airlock and bottle when they are occurring at one minute intervals. The detailed discussions of biochemistry may be of interest to some, but are certainly not needed for basic brewing. Only a few recipes are included, so this book really doesn't suffice as a recipe guide.

Homebrewers ready for all-grain brewing will of course need more information and instruction, for which Mr. Papazian's "Homebrewer's Companion" is a good start; it repeats enough from this first volume that my advice would be to buy "Companion" instead, when you're ready to go all-grain.