Welcome to YoBrew

New YoBrew magazine issue #1 Winter 2008 with interactive homebrewer's crossword

NEWS

New shop!!! Definitly worth checking out.
Colchester Homebrew Supplies
C4, The Seedbed Centre
Wyncolls Road
Colchester  CO4 9HT
Tel/Fax: 01206 854457

www.colchesterhomebrew.co.uk

YoBrew Introduction

We brew because its fun and the outcome is far superior to the stuff in the shops. For less than ten pounds you get 40 pints of strong, good quality ale. 
While brewing beer is quick and easy, wine making from a kit or grape juice takes a little longer. If you need it quick then stick with beer or try an instant wine. Homemade country wine is a bit more challenging and of course pleasing when you succeed. Wine in the UK is often done as country wines and is just about free. I do hear from brewers that say country wine is easy. For me its been a bit hit and miss. Sometime I get exactly what I should but how do I know if I am going to like elderberry wine unless I try it. I would say a rough guide to home wine making. If you can go into a super market and randomly select a wine and probably like it then you are in with a good chance of liking your own brew. If your pallet demands a particular grape by a particular company then stick with that. The same principal applies to beer / lager. If you only like a bud then I guess drinking home brew which is of course far superior but it may not be for you. There is one thing for sure with home brewing and that is lots of people do it and for a wide variety of reasons.

A bit about YoBrew

Over the years I have changed menus, had slogans and lost them. YoBrew started before I had the website. It was just a spiral bound note book hence the spiral spine on top which is taken from an actual photo of my original home brew note book. Things have come and gone but generally the site has evolved and grown. The YoBrew vision now is that this site is a  homebrew books that covers cider, beer, wine and other drinks. The chunky button on top are the chapters. The smaller buttons are sections within the chapter. In addition to chapters in a book there is some software thanks to Pete from petespintpot.co.uk. and there is also a magazine which is published three times a year. Spring, Autumn and Christmas. YoBrew makes links to books on Amazon which is a bitter sweet relationship. For each book bought we get a small percentage which is handy but it is not what the site is about. You see YoBrew is a home brew book so it should be all you need. Clearly its never will be the only source you should have, there are loads of good books and web sites each have different points of views and different ways of approaching this great past time.

Old slogan was : YoBrew turning water into wine,beer, cider and other drinks....  (Hence  the tap logo)
Current slogan: NONE (Keep it simple)
Slogan / bumper sticker I just thought of:- Home brewers don't pay for it
December 2008 yobrew had over 1000 visitors each day, all mainly from the UK. Very pleasing and thanks go to people that found it helpful and put a link to it from their site or blog and of course to the people that have contributed so much to the content of this site. Yobrew is now well in the top 1 million web sites world wide. OK not going to give google a run for its money but hey I think it is kind of good. My aim is for YoBrew to be in the top 100,000 web sites world wide through good honest content no webmaster tricks.

Taking home brewing seriously

Looking at the USA you see some very top of the range equipment. Not just a bucket and siphon tube for them. Top quality stainless steel conical fermenters. I would struggle to justify the purchase of one of these but I must say they do seem very good.It seems so convenient. No racking to remove the brew from the sediment (lees), No you just turn on the tap at the bottom and the sediment is removed. I think these are aimed in the states for beer brewing but I would want it for wine as I am sure that when I siphon my wine to separate it from the old sediment that's  where I can allow too much access to oxygen. I know campden tables sort this out but if you rack wine for the second time its hard to know how much campden tablet to add as you need to know the SO2 concentration. But I think all of this is avoided with a conical fermenter. Which is the way commercial wine makers do things. The above conical fermenters is available at. http://www.beertech.co.uk/

Anyhow brewing at home is fun because you do not need expensive equipment. When I win the lotto I will get one for sure.

Indeed just seen this on ebay when I searched for "conical fermenter"
 

Fine wine

You may not expect lovers of fine wine to be interested in homebrew but the surprise is that the really serious ones do this to give them a better understanding of wine.. They tend to brew the top of the range kits which use not only the correct grape for the type of wine but also grapes from the correct region. By following the process from high quality grape juice to a well aged red their knowledge of wine is more complete and usually assists in understanding how to find wine that can be laid down as an investment.

What's all this beer / wine stuff?  I like a drop of the hard stuff. Well there is a new generation of hero class yeast that can produce (without distilling) high alcoholic drinks such as:- Cherry brandy 21% by vol., Peach schnapps and many  many more.

Visit your local home brew shop

Some how the web does not always cut it. I absolutely love visiting my local shop. Home brew shop owners all seem so very willing to help and advise as required. I decided to spoil my self with a semi-automatic floor standing cork inserter. I researched on the web and the one on offer by the art of brewing seemed very good and very cost effective. I went to my local shop and I guess they cannot stock everything and the did offer to get one in. It would have been nice to check it out but I purchased the one from the art of brewing. To this day I am very pleased with it. Solid build good action and handles commercial corks. Just the job. If the same cork inserter was available from my local shop for around the same price I definitely would have bought it their. It must be my version of retail therapy. I love it when I exit a home brew shop after a good chat about the items I intend to buy and have all the goods I wanted in my hands and one of the wine samples in my belly

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Visitor's involvement

I, Stephan Barnard Founded YoBrew back in the late 90s. I set it up as a place for me to have an electronic log book. I put my favorite recipes, ideas, experiments. It was also a place for me to write up some of the science behind this hobby. (Finally get to use my biology degree). Well the eLog book was great for me and soon others stated to have a look and they were/are most welcome. Then visitors offered articles, reviews and recipes. That was just great and now YoBrew is the result of more than one author and by far the greatest contributor is Peter Laycock of petespintpot.co.uk who found out about YoBrew in the Times culture supplement. The future of YoBrew is to keep the eLog book concept and involve visitors that want to contribute. In addition we aim to make the site advert free. Sure we will promote shops but this will be done on an equal un-biased basis. Hopefully we will promote brew shops worldwide.  

Update: I have put in some links to Amazon for specific books. I hope this does not make the site look too commercial. It is just that the web is great for finding out a particular article or fact bites and books are better at covering the whole subject. My on-going project to publish my own book on homebrew and make this available for free as a pdf. I hope you enjoy the site and if you want to be more involved then please just drop me an e-mail.

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