How To Brew
Instead of writing a book on brewing homemade beer, I've added this page of Links to my favorite source of information.  It's an online book titled "How To Brew" by John Palmer.  I'm sure that this book can answer any and all questions.

Introduction - Introduction
Glossary -      Glossary
Equipment -   Descriptions
Section 1 - Brewing Your First Beer With Malt Extract
1  A Crash Course in Brewing
1.0  What Do I Do?
1.1  Brew Day
1.2  Fermentation
1.3  Bottling Day
1.4  Serving Day
2  Brewing Preparations
2.0  The Road to Good Brewing
2.1  Preparation
2.2  Sanitation
2.2.1  Cleaning Products
2.2.2  Cleaning Your Equipment
2.2.3  Sanitizing Your Equipment
2.3  Record Keeping
3 Malt Extract and Beer Kits
3.0  What Is Malt?
3.1  Beer Kit Woes
3.2  Shopping for Extracts
3.3  Finding a Good Kit
3.4  How Much Extract to Use
3.5  Gravity vs. Fermentability
4  Water for Extract Brewing
4.0  The Taste of Water
4.1  Home Water Treatment
4.2  Water Chemistry Adjustment for Extract Brewing
5  Hops
5.0  What Are They?
5.1  How Are They Used?
5.2  Hop Forms
5.3  Hop Types
5.4  Hop Measurement
5.5  Hop Bittering Calculations
6 Yeast
6.0  What Is It?
6.1  Yeast Terminology
6.2  Yeast Types
6.3  Yeast Forms
6.4  Yeast Strains
6.4.1  Dry Yeast Strains
6.4.2  Liquid Yeast Strains
6.5  Preparing Yeast and Yeast Starters
6.6  When is My Starter Ready to Pitch
6.7  Yeast from Commercial Beers
6.8  Support Your Local Micro
6.9  Yeast Nutritional Needs
6.9.1  Nutrients
6.9.2  Oxygen
6.9.3  Aeration is Good, Oxidation is Bad
7 Boiling and Cooling
7.0  First Recipe
7.1  Beginning the Boil
7.2  The "Hot Break"
7.3  Hop Additions
7.4  Cooling the Wort
8 Fermentation
8.0  Some Misconceptions
8.1  Factors for a Good Fermentation
8.1.1  Yeast Factors
8.1.2  Wort Factors
8.1.3  Temperature Factors
8.2  Re-defining Fermentation
8.2.1  Lagtime or Adaptation Phase
8.2.2  Primary or Attenuative Phase
8.2.3  Secondary or Conditioning Phase
8.3  Conditioning Processes
8.4  Using Secondary Fermentors
8.5  Secondary Fermentor vs. Bottle Conditioning
8.6  Summary
9 Fermenting Your First Beer
9.0  Choosing Your Fermentor
9.1  Transferring the Wort
9.2  Location
9.3  Conducting the Fermentation
9.4  How Much Alcohol Will There Be?
10 What is Different for Brewing Lager Beer?
10.0  Yeast Differences
10.1  Additional Time
10.2  Lower Temperatures
10.3  Autolysis
10.4  Yeast Starters and Diacetyl Rests
10.5  When to Lager
10.6  Aagh! It Froze!
10.7  Maintaining Lager Temperature
10.8  Bottling
11  Priming and Bottling
11.0  What You Need
11.1  When to Bottle
11.2  Bottle Cleaning
11.3  What Sugar Should I Prime With?
11.4  Priming Solutions
11.5  Using PrimeTabs
11.6  Bottle Filling
11.7  Priming and Bottling Lager Beer
11.8  Storage
11.9  Drinking Your First Homebrew
Section 2 - Brewing Your First Extract and Specialty Grain Beer
12  What is Malted Grain?
12.0  Barley Malt Defined
12.1  Malt Types and Usages
12.2  Other Grains and Adjuncts
12.3  Extraction and Maximum Yield
12.4  Extract Efficiency and Typical Yield
12.4.1  Table of Typical Malt Yields
12.5  Mash Efficiency
12.6  Planning Malt Quantities for a Recipe
13 Steeping Specialty Grains
13.0  Why? Why Not!
13.1  Understanding Grain
13.2  Mechanics of Steeping
13.3  Example Batch
Section 3 - Brewing Your First All-Grain Beer
14 How the Mash Works
14.0  An Allegory"
14.1  Mashing Defined
14.2  The Acid Rest and Modification
14.3  Doughing-In
14.4  The Protein Rest and Modification
14.5  The Starch Conversion/Saccharification Rest
14.6  Manipulating the Starch Conversion Rest
15 Understanding the Mash pH
15.0  What Kind of Water Do I Need?
15.1  Reading a Water Report
15.2  Balancing the Malts and Minerals
15.3  Residual Alkalinity and Mash pH
15.4  Using Salts for Brewing Water Adjustment
16 The Methods of Mashing
16.0  Overview
16.1  Single Temperature Infusion
16.2  Multi-Rest Mashing
16.3  Calculations for Boiling Water Additions
16.4  Decoction Mashing
16.5  Summary
17 Getting the Wort Out (Lautering)
17.0  Aspects of Lautering
17.1  A Good Crush Means Good Lautering
17.2  Getting the Most From the Grainbed
18 Your First All-Grain Batch
18.0  Preparation
18.1  Additional Equipment
18.2  Example Recipe
18.3  Partial Mash Option
18.4  Starting the Mash
18.5  Conducting the Mash
18.6  Conducting the Lauter
18.7  Things You Can Do Differently Next Time
 Section 4 - Formulating Recipes and Solutions
19 Some of My Favorite Beer Styles and Recipes
19.0  A Question of Style
19.1  Ales vs. Lagers
19.2  Style Descriptions
19.3  Ale Styles
19.4  Lager Styles
20 Experiment!
20.0  Just Try It
20.1  Increasing the Body
20.2  Changing Flavors
20.3  Using Honey
20.4  Toasting Your Own Malt
20.5  Developing Your Own Recipes
21 Is My Beer Ruined?
21.0  (Probably Not)
21.1  Common Problems
21.2  Common Off-Flavors
Appendix A - Using Hydrometers
Appendix B - Brewing Metallurgy
B.0  Brewing Metallurgy
B.1  Passivating Stainless Steel
B.2  Galvanic Corrosion
B.3  Soldering, Brazing, and Welding Tips
Appendix C - Chillers
Appendix D - Building a Mash/Lauter Tun
Appendix E - Metric Conversions
Appendix F - Recommended Reading














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