Brew of Batch
Christopher Sidwa
This is a complete Beer Book – whether you are a complete beginner who owns no equipment so far, or an advanced brewer who wants a compendium of knowledge. Bottling and kegging are both covered in detail, so if you are familiar with one but not the other, this book is still going to be useful to you. It is worth keeping and consulting it when you need to fix a problem with your beer or you are ready to try brewing different kinds of beer.
I confess, I’m not a beer drinker, and the closest thing I get to helping with beer is when I turn the hose on to fill the … keg?! (Luckily) my fiancee is a beer maker, so I thought this book would be right up her alley. After her initial reservations of reading a book not about management techniques, she got into this book and willingly read it. She happily chatted to me about it for 10 minutes and explained all the steps to me – she was invigorated by reading this book. Thus this review is written from her perspective.
The author doesn’t want you to rush out and buy new equipment, he gives you the ability to use the things you have already, and gives hints on the practicalities of working with secondhand kegs and so forth. He also wants to make it possible for everyone to brew beer, so he suggests how to make the process more efficient.
The good thing about this book is that it isn’t just a cookbook with the steps and order, it gives little details for when things go awry. That being said, the book walks though through logical steps from types of beer and ingredients through to the actual method part. This way, when you get to brewing you actually know the principles behind the processes.
The author gives a basic, rewarding beer recipe that will still taste ok if you do something wrong. But after that, there are an infinite number of beers that are brewable! The timing at every step can be crucial, and 1 minute at one step and 5 at another can make a significant change to your beer’s flavour. Then the author gets into discussions about fresh yeast vs liquid yeast vs dry yeast. He suggests that you change just one thing at a time, and you will eventually get the perfect beer.
The book gave all the little details on how to fill a keg and put the lid on – don’t worry when the lid doesn’t seal, just wiggle it until it seals! The author’s sense of humour made the non-fiction reading enjoyable, and the deal was sealed with the gorgeous cover. There are lots of pictures inside of beer, and the author looking happy and having fun making beer. Some of the most useful pictures are those that show the different colours of grains and hops – so you know what kinds of ingredients to buy.
The takeaway from this book was: You don’t make beer, you make conditions that the beer is happy to grow in – Just have a good habitat and keep it clean to make delicious beer.
Murdoch | 30th July 2018 | AU$39.99 | hardback
Well, I started off reading this book with avid fascination, and ended up not finishing it due to a sense of reading about exactly the same wrongdoings over and over again. The chapters are titled by the offenses detailed within them, yet the ‘characters’ have so much in common. I feel as if Tim tries to make them appear different, yet so many offenders have the same personality types (psychopath / narcissus) and the same upbringing (low socioeconomic status / abuse).
I freely admit that business management and so forth is not usually in my personal interest area. However this book caught my fancy because I knew the stories would interest me. I’ve always enjoyed the Hudson River plane landing, and I knew this book would explore why that actually happened and how it coud be prevented. Some of the case studies here are actually talking about how large businesses can hide ilegal practices under legal looking paperwork.
I found this novel interesting but very outdated. The contents is almost 30 years old! I skipped over most of the scientific parts, discounting them as outdated, but some of the observations by Oliver Sacks
Lyrically written and with beautiful prose, you will find yourself travelling deeply into Petrea’s consciousness throughout her life. This memoir is one of the more enjoyable ones I have read, although at times I found myself having to hold onto my disbelief at how things worked out so conveniently. I AM a scientist by trade after all.
Although I might flippantly reply to a question of “What is the meaning of life?” with “There isn’t one.” this novel provides a better answer, or at least contemplation of the answer. People often have regrets about what they could have / should have done differently. There are the typical lists of ‘The Top 5 Things People Regret’, but this novel actually offers readers a gentle guide to how to go about improving things now.
I was really looking forward to this novel, but then I couldn’t get into it. I expected that most of the novel would be during the time that Sala was pretending to be a girl, but instead it was split into about half-half. I honestly never felt like he was in danger. He was never with a group of people who were ordered to drop their pants and half the time they were in hiding where he wasn’t even in contact with people. As far as I could tell, the worst risk was the people who had known his mother and that his mother was Jewish.
Please keep in mind that I am not discounting or demeaning the author’s experiences at all. This is a review of the writing style, and I just couldn’t get into it. For example it is kind of present tense, and also past tense.
I’ve spent the last 4.5 years (let’s be honest, probably my whole life) being completely stressed out by completing my PhD (you may now call me Dr. Rose). Now I have a summer ahead of me that seems pretty empty at this point. I think I’ll be practicing Slow living without trying. It’s sort of regressing to an old style of living, which I have always supported. If you enjoy making your own bread, take the moment to do so, and enjoy the process. Be mindful the whole time.
