Talk:Homebrewing/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Talk Page Cleanup

There has been little discussion on these pages for a while, but in an effort to facilitate the rewrite / cleanup / merge (if applicable) of Homebrewing and Homebrewing Beer I am going to reorganize the talk pages to hopefully make the past discussions easier to reference. --Chasingmytail (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Error in Material section

Radio Stations?? I noticed that this article mentions homebrew radio stations which is obviously not the homebrew this article is talking about. After searching about homebrew radio stations I can see that this involves making antennas, crystals, and other things pertaining to transmitting radio signals and not fermenting beer and home. This should be re-written. Just don't have the time right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miarmyguy (talk • contribs) 00:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

They may have been talking about podcast sites like The Brewing Network. I put a 'fact' tag in that portion. --Chasingmytail (talk) 21:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Moved 5 paragraph -unsigned- comment about personal experience with home winemaking to Talk:Home_winemaking --Chasingmytail (talk) 20:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Big rewrite

I am in the process of doing a massive rewrite of this page. The information contained in it is not incorrect, just extremely limited in scope. --rimbaud 14:50, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

Let me know how I can help. I am also contemplating an entirely separate and more focused beer encyclopedia on a separate site. -- dmcalist 10:30, April 15, 2005

Looks like no one has done anything here for some time. Actually I think the information could stand a good working over and some is actually inaccurate. Being a new Wikipedia wannabe editor I'll wait a couple of weeks for anyone else to claim the rights before I jump in. That'll be around the end of the first week in October '05. -- Bob 18:14, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Be Bold! Go right ahead and edit the article. If we don't like your changes, we'll let you know. :D --goethean ॐ 18:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

writing a how to

I will be brewing my first batch starting on sunday. I am new to wiki's and do not know how to create the page. I want to make a How To Brew Beer in wikibooks. It can contain recipes and techniques there. It looks like they have How To -> Cookbook so I am not totally sure where to put the page even if I knew how to create it. - whoops forgot to log in --SupIAmMike 20:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Distillation?

I took out the part about distillation in the legal section - no one distills beer as far as I know - it makes no sense. Malt extract is very expensive compared to sugar and molasses that is usually used in distillation processes. I question the whole section as far as that goes, as it only applies to the USA.

External Links Section

This whole thing is kind of a mess. I'm working on cleaning it up. I removed some links that seemed to just be commercial links. I also moved links to homebrew clubs to a seperate section. I hope to subcatacorize all this a bit further to make it clearer in the next couple days and get rid of some links that seem like vanity links to not expecially informative personal pages.Frank 01:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey! You deleted my homebrew club (BrewCommune) links! I replaced them in the effort to expand the online homebrewing community.

• Sorry. Didn't mean to delete anything legit. Cheers! Frank 20:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I edited a misspelled link for the Northern Brewer forum (removed the "-s" in the URL). --Newcomer [please don't bite me!]

Hi, homebrewchatter.com keeps getting deleted. There is nothing commercial about that site. It's strictly a community for homebrewing discussion. What gives? It's not like homebrewtalk.com where they sell memberships and have ads everywhere. It's free and has a bunch of homebrewers who love to talk beer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ó Flannagáin (talk • contribs)

Please see the relevant sections of the external links guideline and the policy "What Wikipedia is not" particularly:

• "Sites that require registration or a paid subscription should be avoided because they are of limited use to most readers."
• "Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files."

Also please note that in repeatedly adding the link without any discussion you appeared to be edit warring, which could have gotten you blocked from editing. --Stlemur (talk) 11:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The site's brewing forums are completely viewable without registering. I thought wikipedia was about sharing information. That's all HBC does. And, obviously, I wasn't the only person "edit warring." It takes two people at least. And I was the first to start the discussion, so looks like you could've been blocked from editing as well. I shall add the link again. Please let me know why you delete it if you do.

Home Mead and Cider Making

Should these be discussed here, on the Mead and cider pages or on new pages entirely? Frank 19:45, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be great to have distinct articles. --Elliskev 18:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Homebrewing not just beer

This is an outstanding article as written, however as the previous editor mentioned it focuses mostly on the honebrewing of beer. While beer homebrewing probably does dominate the hobby, there are many homebrewers (myself among them) who also homebrew wine and cider, and among other things it's not uncommon for people to brew mead, sake, and combinations of any of the above (braggot, etc.)

Maybe this article should lead off by making reference to this fact, and then split into different articles? Not really sure how to reflect the fact that homebrewing really is a diverse hobby.--Caliga10 16:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Well--I mentioned this in the heading just above this one. Persnally, I think home wine, mead, cider, sake, etc. making should probably have thier own pages ultimately. They're closesly related but not the same. There's some question as to whether mead or cider making constitutes brewing at all; some people feel the term "brewing" should be reserved strictly for beer. Frank 16:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know you did (I even gave you props, man!) I disagree that the term "brewing" should be reserved strictly for beer, as you might have guessed, but that's just my own opinion of course. Also, the process by which one makes wine and cider is generally similar enough to the beer making process, in terms of tools used, use of yeast, etc. that it seems like there'd be alot of redundancy involved in duplicating that stuff into different articles. The major difference is that wort is generally boiled and hops added to the boil, unless the beer is dry hopped.... but I believe some people follow a similar process to add herbs to mead.--Caliga10 16:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Ultimately, it shouldn't really matter how you or I think of the term "brewing" but common usage (in the interest of NPOV). Anyway, I'm fine w/ whoever wants to take the initiative on actually writing on mead/cider/whatever making just putting it where they think is best at the moment. We can talk all we want about where the info should go but if we aren't actually adding anything we're just blowing smoke. If there's only a small amount of info added on the subjects, it might be better to have it all in one place rather scattered about on stubs. Of course, if there's enough info (and there will be eventually, I assume, just maybe not right away) then each subject merrits its own entry. Frank 17:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Too American

The history section is very American centred. I'm sure that other countries have been homebrewing beer as well. Personally, in knowing the history of home brewing, I don't really care that much about Jimmy Carter signing laws. That section should not be the first thing mentioned, but should go closer to the end. Perhaps in a trivia section. WB_Frontier

It's not just the history section that's US-centric. All this stuff about artificial carbonation, and about decent beers being unavailable except as homebrew, is totally alien to my experience in the UK. It even talks about cask-conditioned ale as a "rare and exotic" substance only occasionally encountered. PeteVerdon 19:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but homebrew is force carbonated world-wide with great regularity. Priming with sugar is great for bottling, but advanced homebrewers don't like to wait 2 weeks to drink the beer after it's fermented typically, and prefer to choose the exact amount of carbonation in their beer, given the temperature of the beer fridge / kegerator / etc... It's not artificial, beer carbonated through sugar or a c02 tank are chemically identical, provided there is adequate yeast in suspension to eat the priming sugar. Also, cask-conditioned ale is not "common" anywhere any more than barley wine and labics are, even though they are MORE common in Europe, by no means does the average homebrewer, or even the advanced homebrewer, typically make regular cask conditioned batches. It's extremely time consuming and expensive. pACMANx 18:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Unpasteurised, cask-conditioned ale is "common" in the UK by any definition you care to mention: it is referred to as "real ale", and is served in something like 50% of pubs. The vast majority of British home-brewers make cask-conditioned ale. Unpasteurised "bottle-conditioned" ale is available in most British supermarkets. PeteVerdon is right - this article is highly oriented towards American home-brewing. elvum 15:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I would move the U.S.-centric stuff to Homebrewing in the United States. The U.S.-centric information is actually interesting, but it's probably about 1/3-2/3 of the artcle. The history, legality, and most of the culture sections could all be moved. The homebrewing article should concentrate on process, and maybe somebody could add a little bit of history about the process. Another place where homebrewing is popular is Australia, and a Homebrewing in Australia article might also be in order. Bolwerk 18:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a hugely one-sided view of the craft which completely ignores the separate development and legal frameworks outside the US. DavidP02 22:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

...and rather than just carp, comments like "almost every beer available is pasteurised" is just not true worldwide. There are plenty of unpasteurised beers in the UK both bottle and cask conditioned. DavidP02 23:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I think UK contributers are ignoring the conventions of Wikipedia (or at least as they are stand now). This article started as "U.S.-centric." You can either add sections or start a separate article on "Home Brewing in the UK" There is no call to rewrite the article entirely. (as I have been informed by articles started as blatantly "UK centric") Cuvtixo (talk) 16:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not how the convention works. In the specific issue of British or American English in articles which are not necessarily specific to the UK or the US, we use the original author's grammar. This does not mean that articles themselves can use a US-centric POV. I'm re-tagging this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

this US-centric complaint is odd to me. Homebrewing sites at wikepedia have tons of UK-contributed material and in some cases this UK material is quite dominant. Carlw4514 (talk) 16:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. By all means please feel free to highlight geoceontricity in other articles for correction in the same way; it can only improve the encyclopedia in the long run. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A Pissing Contest? [1] I use this phrase advisedly, and want to emphasize that I am not conjuring it up to try to be crude, but just feel it describes my concerns perfectly. What do you call these officious-looking, scolding banners that appear at the top of sections? I need convincing that this business of attaching a banner to various sections, with me attaching one type to this one, you a different one that one, isn't indeed just a pissing contest that, on the contrary, will not improve wikipedia but just trash it up with banners to no purpose.Carlw4514 (talk) 11:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place to discuss the aesthetic merits of cleanup tags. Some people like them, some don't, but the project as a whole has agreed that they are a standard way of highlighting article issues (and adding pages to the appropriate cleanup categories). I personally use them to track and improve articles. Users who dislike them can hide them by adding code to their monobook.css files. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Reviewing again the current article, I just do not think a case can be made at this time that any of the sections are US-centric ... UK laws, history and practices are prominently featured (perhaps in its original state this was different). You have failed to convince me this isn't an ancient contest that is still going on to dominate the fire plug with one's own flavor of urine. Being a later dog to the contest I can report that the mixture reeks.Carlw4514 (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

... actually, you're right. I had this confused with homebrewing beer, which definitely still has global-view problems. I'll take th tag off this one. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Wow, very nice to see "talk" work like it was supposed to, I'm impressed.Carlw4514 (talk) 10:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

History

Agreed. Homebrewing has been around for quite a long time-- it was once the safest way to drink water. How about a collaberative effort to summarize the history of homebrewing chronologically and geographically? Where to start? pACMANx 20:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's covered to some extent at History of beer. — goethean ॐ 20:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough! How about one of those deals where a good synopsis of the history, particularly as it pertains to homebrewing, is here with one of those "click here for full article" deals? I feel that an article on homebrewing should contain some mention - perhaps just in refernce or summary - of the history of the art. Unrelated... Isn't the "enjoyable and rewarding" language in violation of NPOV? pACMANx 23:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Ye cats. This article is a link farm.

Wikipedia is not a web directory for everybody and their uncle who knows how to brew beer. I'm about to go on a slash-and-burn effort to weed them out. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 04:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Why Are Links to the Forums Gone?

These were valuable links that included content that you can't just get at Wikipedia! These should be returned. We do not need everybody and their uncle's website on how to make beer, but listing a few of the prominent forums would be helpful for people who need an interactive environment.

If people want to find a prominent forum for homebrewing, they have Google. Wikipedia is not Google, nor should it be. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 02:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

One of the principle advantages of wikipedia over other fee-paying services is that it offers both well-written analysis of the subject and links to other web-resources. Frankly, having a pretty user name really does not excuse eviscerating an article of some of its most useful content based on a personal preference to make a unique creation look like every other flavour of vanilla in the market. On a further note; if you actually brewed any beer, you might realise that the homebrewing community in each country is proportionately rather small and relies on this kind of information exchange to keep itself alive. Rather than initiate a tit-for-tat reversion, I will leave you to consider this information at your leisure DavidP02 22:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Your arguments are uncompelling in the face of WP:NOT and WP:EL. The fact that homebrewing communities may be small in certain areas of the world is utterly irrelevant to the stated mission of Wikipedia, the core philosophies of Wikipedia, and to the policies outlined at the links above. Ξxtreme Unction 23:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for replying.

I am aware of these policies having recently rejoined wikipedia having lost an old password. The point about the community being small expands into several areas, which are, I regret very pertinent. I guess your main objections would be linking to unverified original research; or, in terms of the links to fora, linking only to those which are mandated by the article. Owing to the small size of the community, many written references contain technical inaccuracies or are simply wrong; (there are notable exceptions). As such, there is an awful lot of nonsense or narrow-view information circulating. I regret that a certain amount of this has been perpetuated by this article. I have pointed out one glaring incidence in the chat here.

Whilst there are a few quality references out there, (UK: Graham Wheeler, Dave Line), alot of the most up to date information can only be found on these fora and their related sites. Some of them have become commercial to support themselves; others, from speaking to their owners and administrators, only hope to make enough from GoogleAds to cover their costs.

In short, I think I'd be the first to delete the clutter and one-step-from-advertising junk that often makes its way into hobby and pastime articles: in fact, I have been. However, with respect and whilst I am sure you have heard this one before, I feel the unction in this case has been somewhat too extreme. DavidP02 08:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Removing external links from an article does not eviscerate it of useful content. Links aren't content. If you think a forum thread meets WP:RS and contains useful facts, integrate its information in the article and cite the thread as a reference. That's why we're here for, not to build a directory to web resources. Femto 13:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

A new agenda for Home brewing

Okay - if I have to get down and dirty to make a point, I'm up for it.

DavidP02 - Brief CV

31 years home brewing, 15 years as a technical author, 10 years as a technical trainer, 5 years as a technical examiner and 2 years journalism writing real articles for real paper publications.

Home brewing header article

1) I have the greatest of respect for the original authors, however this article gets off on the wrong foot from the start. The compact Oxford dictionary define home-brew as beer or other alcoholic liquid brewed at home (p474); as such any article which takes a beer-centred point of view is kind of missing the point. My suggestion would be that home brewing forms a header article that goes into brief detail about the main kinds of alcoholic beverage brewed at home, but leaves the detail for separate, beverage-specific articles.

2) The 1979 start point is wholly US-centred and frankly pointless. It leaves out the traditions in Australia, UK and Europe which have vibrant home-brewing communities and are subject to separate legal frameworks and legislative start points. The history section might more sensibly start from the earliest self-brewing prohibition start point in all these areas and work forwards.

3) It would probably be wise to differentiate the main branches of home brewing and pehaps classify them loosely between lambic, (naturally occuring), yeast methods and those that used introduced yeast cultures. The main types of homebrew, beer, wine, cider, mead and others should then be dealt with separately.

4) The article could then be rounded off with some cultural comment plus some legal warnings by territory. For example, the distilling of malted barley brews makes malt whisky, so the removal of a legal warning about distilling beers was probably inadvisable. Similarly wine becomes brandy, cider becomes calvados and dark sugar brews become rum. This is typically illegal and the article should say as much whilst taking into account territorial differences.

With all due respect to the OED, I've never heard the term "brewing" to refer to anything other than beer, mead (and its variants), and alcoholic cider (and its variants). Winemaking, while chemically a very similar process, is not referred to as "brewing". And, obviously, distillation is a completely different process from a chemical perspective.

Aside from that caveat, I agree with your other points and I agree that this article is in desperate need of a re-write.

All the best,

Ξxtreme Unction

01:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

On beer

1) The article falls down rather alot in terms of NPOV, being mostly aimed at the extract brewer. The majority of homebrewers are in fact kit brewers. People who make the leap to extract often quickly make the leap full-grain and I can put up proper statistics to prove it.

Please do so. Published data from a respectable source would be necessary to back up such an assertion. Bri2k1 18:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I had planned to use data on kits from a large kit manufacturer to back up the argumnet but they have taken the data off the web, so I'm a bit stuck on this one for the time being. DavidP02 21:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing anything you come up with as well; I don't doubt that kits are more popular in a worldwide context, but my own data seems to suggest that extract brewers are largely content to stick with that method. I s'pose it varies a lot with locality and availability of ingredients. MalkavianX 05:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

2) The article completely fails to mention brewing water and water-conditioning; being that beer has only four main ingredients, missing out its largest contituent would seem a glaring oversite.

This has now been dealt with in the brewing liquor section. DavidP02 12:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

3) The prejudice towards pasteurised beer, carbuoys and carbonation is extreme. Whilst these methods are employed, particulalry in the states, they certainly are not universal or necessarily desirable.

4) There is probably as much live yeast in an unpasteurised beer as there is in an apple. I'd love to see a source for the "gas" statement.

5) Basically a complete re-write is necessary taking into account the full range of brewing traditions giving equal weight to kit, extract and all-grain methods.

On other brews

Im happy to have a go at these as well, but can see that some people have already put themselves down for them.

DavidP02 19:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Getting Started

Home brewing history

(I have edited an email address and request for recipes out of this chat).

I am planning to start with the history section. I don't propose to run a full beer history, that is more appropriate for the main beer article. I propose to start with an 1880 British Act which was the earliest I have yet found to legalise, (if taxed), home brewing. This start point will allow a run through of the prohibition and legalisation periods of both the US and Australia. I have a French colleague looking into the position in France and Belgium. I have reasonable sources for most facts and am tidying up the information for a re-draft shortly.

DavidP02 19:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

In line with this, I've added a main article reference to the brewing history article.

I have made the very beginnings of a draft to globalise the history section. I have taken out the 'globalize' tag as we now have some historical comment for the UK and Australia.

I have now expanded the history section to cover regulation, liberalisation, the differing development in different countries and some pioneering figures in the craft. (Note to self: Need more and stronger references!) DavidP02 23:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have save the following text for a later move to a more relevant section of the article:-

"Later that same year, Charlie Papazian founded the Association of Brewers. In 1984 Papazian published The Complete Joy of Homebrewing."

I have now reintegrated this back into the text DavidP02 23:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The whole article needs references adding which I have yet to do.

DavidP02 22:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have also inserted a references section for citings as they come up... DavidP02 22:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note to self: I need to find some suitable external references wher eI have so far used Wikipedia DavidP02 00:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

A polite note on concatenating "home" and "brewing"

The Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam Webster, the American Heritage Dictionary and even the book featured in header picture for this article all agree that the only way to concatenate these two words is with a hyphen or not at all.

"Homebrew" is variously a trade name and many other things; however, with respect, it is neither English nor American English. So, with due regard to the Googlefight fans of this world, please can we agree to use English rather than continue to torture the language to death via a thousand abbreviations... ;-)

DavidP02 22:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem here. The important thing is that the written name and wikipedia title agree. "Googlefight" is just useful for determining common usage (while providing mild amusement). I too prefer the name without concatenation. I'm not sure who copied the content over to here, and all is water under the bridge now, but I think using the "move" tab at the top of the page is preferable to cutting and pasting as it keeps the history all in one place. Just keep this in mind for future reference. -MrFizyx 01:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually a page move is problematic for other reasons. There is a category, and even the article on Charlie Papazian gives his book with the concatenated term. I don't know the style guide policy in great detail without looking--why not hold off on the page move until someone else can give input on the name? -MrFizyx 01:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Now actually checking on the above:

• Oxford English Dictionary -> "home-brew" (with one example written as "homebrew")
• American Heritage Dictionary -> "homebrew" (with "home brew" as a variant)
• Merriam Webster -> "home brew"

I reckon all of 'em is good English and we just need to pick one. -MrFizyx 03:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Homebrewing/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The lack of inline citations and the charge of US-centrism keep this article from being rated higher than "B" class. Gentgeen 00:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 00:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:31, 3 May 2016 (UTC)