I need some help from the homebrew community!

[Thirdthorpe]

Hey all, I need to borrow some wisdom and advice from the homebrew community! I am in college and was recently assigned a project in which we need to design a program of our choosing. This is a pretty big assignment and we've been given three months to get it done. Naturally, being the brew-fiend that I am, I decided to make a program similar to BeerSmith or Ibrewmaster.
What I am in need of is input from you guys about what you like and don't like about these programs. What would you like to see added? I'm hopeful that when all is said and done I can share the finished product with you guys so everybody wins.

 

[WileECoyote]

I hate that in BeerSmith it dosnt have a box you can check to not fly sparge, so you have to go into every singe recipe and change them, its a pain in the butt to say the least.

Cheers and good luck on your project

 

[+HopSpunge+]

Ask Tex. He will tell you how to get an A+ in your course.

 

[unionrdr]

Even Beersmith 2.1 seems to be a little heavy handed on the IBU calculations between bittering & flavor additions. It'd also be a plus if they listed Cooper's cans,Munton's cans & their DME's as well as brew enhancers & the like in their grains list. And the pics of the actual beer next to the recipe is smaller than the graphic they use to show the color.

 

[Thirdthorpe]

Something I've always wanted to know is how dry or sweet an extract is going to ferment out as. For example, in my personal experience I've found that the Breiss lme generally ferments out sweet and somewhat syrupy which leads me to believe the grains are mashed at high temps. So far dme has given me a thinner mouthfeel. I was thinking about incorporating an entire section to extract brewing and the little details like that. If anyone else has anything else, please lay it on me. I'm all ears.

 

[unionrdr]

That might be a good thing. mouth feel between LME & DME. Even though a lot of variables come into play with that in regard to the entire recipe.

 

[stpug]

My suggestion would be to narrow your focus, and tackle a single niche that either hasn't been well represented or has been represented in a limited fashion. I have a hard time imagining that a single developer can create anything too useful in three months time. Beersmith has been in active development for years.

A couple of ideas with a narrower focus could be:
-A standalone, portable yeast propagation calculator similar to yeastcalc or mr malty (preferably yeastcalc)
----I love yeastcalc but hate that it cannot be used locally on my computer or any system without flash
----I love portable applications and could easily see this as a portable application and droid/ios app.

-A brewday calculator that spits out phases of the brewday and time allocation (my wife would love this)
----User enters general timings based on a volume amount (strike water heat time, runnings to boil time, prep setup time, clean up time, etc)
----Program, based on recipe, mash schedule, hop schedule, etc spits out an overall brewday time plus the approximate phases of the brewday
----Although this is totally important, I can have a brewday from about 4.5-6.25 hours depending on my recipe/process that day. It changes dramatically with decoction mashing.

-A decoction mash scheduler using authentic decoction mash techniques based on recipe formulation
----I'm thinking a mash scheduler that's more fine-grained that Beersmiths
----Compares to historical decoction mash shedules
----Volume calculations that work out a little better than beersmiths

You get the idea. Find a niche that hasn't been well developed or could use some sprucing up, and create a new formulation for it. If you develop the software around a solid algorithm then you may be able to "pass along" the algorithm to an established software developer - or find some part-time work developing for someone like beersmith/ibrewmaster.

HTH!

 

[danielofthedale]

I don't know if this exsists but a mobile app for brew day notes would be great. Something I could just input all data as I go. When I try to do it in a note book I always forget something and I keep the note book on the other side of kitchen to make sure it does not get wet and lose track of it. But I always have my phone on me and that would be much easier to use and remember.

 

[Calder]

An FG calculator that accounts for the fermentability of the ingredients.

The calculators I've used treat all wort the same and give you an FG based soley on the programed atenuation of the yeast, which is usually about 75%.

If you mash low, or use a lot of simple sugars, you will get a higher attenuation, but the calculators I've seen do not account for that. And vice-versa if you mash high or use lactose or maltodextrin.

 

[Thirdthorpe]

I appreciate the input, guys. I'm giving a proposal tomorrow and all this stuff has been written into it. Keep the great ideas coming!

 

[ChadRabbit]

A couple of ideas with a narrower focus could be:
-A standalone, portable yeast propagation calculator similar to yeastcalc or mr malty (preferably yeastcalc)
----I love yeastcalc but hate that it cannot be used locally on my computer or any system without flash
----I love portable applications and could easily see this as a portable application and droid/ios app.

-A brewday calculator that spits out phases of the brewday and time allocation (my wife would love this)
----User enters general timings based on a volume amount (strike water heat time, runnings to boil time, prep setup time, clean up time, etc)!

THIS. I feel the same way about the yeast calculators. If there was one built in to any brew software, I'd probably do a backflip. The brew day calculator would be nice for the SWMBO's out there as well.