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Rating:  Summary: Good collection of recipes Review: Before I bought this book I looked at a couple of others first. I thought about Papazian's "Homebrewers Companion" but it had a lot of things other than recipes that I didn't need, and I thought about Higgins "Homebrewers Recipe Guide", but I didn't believe that even 3 people ever really brewed and tested 200 recipes, so I was left with Lutzen and Stevens two books "Homebrew Favorites" and "More Homebrew Favorites". I bought them both.The books contain lots of recipes (240 in the first volume, 260 in the second) and in every single style. The recipes are evenly split between easy extract recipes and the more advanced all grain recipes. (Good! I can be challenged when my skills improve.) Most important to me was that the beers were brewed by a lot of different people, and a lot of them won awards in lots of different contests and lots of them include some comments about how the beers turned out. This gives me confidence that th! e recipes really worked and the huge number of recipes gives me lots of options and even helps me create my own variations, picking elements I like from one recipe and combining them from another. The two "Homebrew Favorites" books are probably the best recipe collections on the market, at least for my needs (and probably most other homebrewers too). The books really are on target as far as knowing what homebrewers do in their kitchens. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that there are some recipes in the book that too simple for me or that are kind of goofy (I don't want to make beer with hot peppers in it!) Maybe you would like this though, so look at it and see.
Rating:  Summary: Very reliable Review: I rely on this book to pull me through. I've been brewing for just over 6 years. I do mostly partial-mash/extract brews. This book has been invaluable not just for the recipes it contains, but also for the examples of styles and their ingredients that it presents. Recipes are convieniently grouped by style and clearly labeled by difficulty (all-grain, extract, etc.). Most recipes also feature brewers and/or judges comments which can be valuable when improving upon or creating your own recipe. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is just starting to brew their own or has been making kits and is looking for more of a challenge. For the serious all-grain brewer, this book will be less than you're looking for. You should try "Year of Beer" by Amahl Turczyn.
Rating:  Summary: Very reliable Review: I rely on this book to pull me through. I've been brewing for just over 6 years. I do mostly partial-mash/extract brews. This book has been invaluable not just for the recipes it contains, but also for the examples of styles and their ingredients that it presents. Recipes are convieniently grouped by style and clearly labeled by difficulty (all-grain, extract, etc.). Most recipes also feature brewers and/or judges comments which can be valuable when improving upon or creating your own recipe. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is just starting to brew their own or has been making kits and is looking for more of a challenge. For the serious all-grain brewer, this book will be less than you're looking for. You should try "Year of Beer" by Amahl Turczyn.
Rating:  Summary: An even better selection than "Homebrew Favorites" Review: This book has a format very similar to that of Homebrew Favorites but has about 20 more recipes, many of them still carrying outrageous names. I liked the later chapters on fruit beers and the herb & spice beers, the idea of using hot peppers (they advise caution) as a flavoring has appeal to me, might help with the flavor some. Chapter 15, the last one, has mead recipes again, I appreciate that one, it'd be the one I'd most want to try.
Rating:  Summary: An even better selection than "Homebrew Favorites" Review: This book has a format very similar to that of Homebrew Favorites but has about 20 more recipes, many of them still carrying outrageous names. I liked the later chapters on fruit beers and the herb & spice beers, the idea of using hot peppers (they advise caution) as a flavoring has appeal to me, might help with the flavor some. Chapter 15, the last one, has mead recipes again, I appreciate that one, it'd be the one I'd most want to try.
Rating:  Summary: Interesting book with lots of recipes Review: This seems like a pretty good book. I have been looking at it for about a week and it has a variety of recipes in there. Unfortunately many of the recipes have no comments at all and many that do have comments simply state what ribbon the beer won in which state fair. Very few of them actually state what the recipe resembles or how it tastes.
Overall it seems to be a good collection of recipes, just a little disappointed that there isn't more tasting comments.
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