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Pete's cherished Beer Wine and Cider recipes have been compiled in his new book. Available for download for free.
Petes Free Recipe Book Click to download your copy
Get the brand new version of Pete's YoBrew
Calculator for free.
Once again, A BIG THANK YOU Pete for all the hard work on the brew calculators!!!
The “Beer Calc’s” & the “Wine & Jam” files are now in the
format of the more modern Excel Workbook (.xlsx).
Other files can be used with old Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook (.xls)
All the files should work without too many problems with the free office
suites such as Softmaker & WPS.
On behalf of all of us that use your calculators, THANK YOU Pete!!!
Lockdown 2021 the brewing must go on
http://www.yobrew.co.uk/calculators.php
After a busy year we have the final
version of the YoBrew 2015 Annual. It is the result of lots of hard work by
the authors, and we like to think we have an excellent FREE homebrew
magazine for you. Please have a great festive period, and a fantastic New
Year. A massive thank you to the YoBrew magazine writers, for volunteering
their time and effort to produce this magazine. Also a massive thank you to
you for taking the time to read this and to anyone that helps us spread the
word.
Magazine Contents: Sparkling wines, the Potassium Sorbate debate, Wort
cooler design, Scrumpy, Homebrew tips, The Maybank “Cake stand” filter
holder, Malt Easter stout, and lots more...
Sparkling wines, the Potassium Sorbate debate,
Wort cooler design, Scrumpy, Homebrew tips, The Maybank “Cake stand” filter
holder, Malt Easter stout.and lots more...
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.
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. The target is three issues a year. Spring, Autumn and Christmas. At present it is just one and the 2010 issue is just out. 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 different 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)
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.
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.
Anyhow brewing at home is fun because you do not need expensive equipment. When I win the lotto I will get one for sure.
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.
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 on-line 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 there and then. 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 shop's wine samples in my belly
.
I, 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 and products that I think are of interest and relevant to the page text. I have also added a home brewer's view of amazon. Looks a bit like our own on-line shop but it is just a view on amazon. 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 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 do just drop me an e-mail.
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All text on this site is purely the various contributing author's personal views and should not be taken as fact.COPYRIGHT NOTICE © www.yobrew.co.uk 1999 - 2021. All rights reserved.