Learning the Science of Brewing Beer

Palmer's "How to Brew" would be a great read for you, even if you already understand the basics.

 

I'm not really sure how many intermediate brewing science books there are available. Brewing books seem to be either beginner learning the basics of homebrewing or advanced science about brewing. The only thing I can think of would be Greg Noonan's book New Brewing Lager Beer.

 

There have been some really good additions to home brewing literature in the last few years. A decade ago the texts were mostly beginner and advanced beginner or straight out professional and technical.

I have found the 4 books Water, Malt, Hops and Yeast from the Brewers Publications' Brewers Elements series to be solid and helpful.

If you already have Palmers How To Brew and understand the principles and want to expand your range those 4 will go a long way.

You can brew for a long time, forever, make great beer and have fun and never need to do any math beyond using a scale. That is how beer was being made for centuries before us. However, avoiding science and math in brewing will limit your options. Eventually you have to reckon with chemistry and some more advanced math. Even then it's not terribly complicated. Not many advanced brewers need to know the chemical equations. We just need to be able to use software and have a good understanding of the principles behind the science.
Cheers.

 

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels is my all-time favorite technical homebrewing text. It's got all the formulas you need and everything to really start designing good recipes. I'll say this, though -- the data in there is 15 years old now, so it's a bit dated. But a good lot of the information in there is still very relevant.

Randy Mosher just came out with a new super scientific book called Mastering Homebrew. I haven't had the time to read it yet, but in the bookstore I was thinking oh my God is this ever awesome. You really need to check this one out. It's very new so the rumor mill might not be out much on it yet.

And then Denny Conn and Drew Beechum have an awesome book out there called Experimental Homebrewing, which teaches you not so much the science as it does how to experiment scientifically to really understand what different variables will do to your beer. Blind triangle test, baby. Check it out for sure as well.

 

If you want to get into the details: "The 4 books Water, Malt, Hops and Yeast from the Brewers Publications' Brewers Elements series to be solid and helpful."

Cheers!

 

How to Brew is available online for free, just go and print them off...if you aren't turned off by reading them from regular print paper.

 

Indeed it is available online, and I often recommend it for beginners anxious to get started on their first batch. For @dn151864, a self described intermediate brewer, I'd recommend buying the print version. It's more up to date.

 

True, @VikeMan! Cheers!

 

Welcome to BA.

 

This is nothing. Newbie Brewers and masters are all here to help! Cheers!!