Most Important Data To Track

Hi All,

I am hoping to get a feeling of what the minimum you like to track in your log book. On one end of the spectrum you could just track OG, FG, ABV, Ingredients, and Steps. On the other end you could track everything under the sun like BeerSmith allows you to do.

I'm personally starting by tracking just OG, FG, ABV, Ingredients and Steps.

How about you?

grain bill, mash temp, final taste, errors in process, transfer dates

If you are doing all grain out doors, it is helpful to also keep track of the air temp and the temp of the strike water. That way you can make better predictions on the strike water temp to hit your mash temp.

Temperatures.

Temp at pitch, fermentation temp.

Bigcorona said:

If you are doing all grain out doors, it is helpful to also keep track of the air temp and the temp of the strike water. That way you can make better predictions on the strike water temp to hit your mash temp.

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didn't think about this
first outdoor brew day sunday. thanks!

Strike temp, mash temp, boil off rate, times, and volumes.

So yea, basically everything you can track. That way you know what to expect.

I've only just begun, so I may be a bit overboard on my data...
Batch #, Name, Extract, Volume, Grains, Hops, Yeast, Other Flavoring, Fining Agents, Priming Sugar, OG, FG, ABV, NOTES, STEPS, NEXT TIME, and RESULTS.

I use Beersmith, but pretty much the only thing I measure and track is preboil OG and post-boil OG. The ingredients, desired mash profile, etc are all there. Heck, I don't really even get around to checking FG most of the time.

+1 to BeerSmith.

What is the most important data to track? All of the ones that BeerSmith does automatically for you.

My buddy without BeerSmith spends a good 30-45 minutes of his brewday meticulously calculating and recording water volumes, pitching rates, temperatures, boil off, etc.

I just enter my ingredients into BeerSmith, select my custom equipment profile that contains my equipment's specific boil off, loss to trub, etc., and BeerSmith calculates and displays my whole brewday. I don't really even take gravity readings anymore, as I'm much more of an "experimental" brewer than concerned with getting everything perfect and recreating past recipies. Once I got my current rig's efficiency dialed in, I put away my hydrometer, as I know I'm going to be within +/- 5% or so of my target OG and FG pretty much everytime, barring some sort of drastic error on my part (like the time I couldn't count to SEVEN and started with SIX gallons of water pre-mash instead, accidentally turning a stout into a delicious 7.8% ABV imperialish stout!).

At the end of the day, my buddy's meticulous notes look almost identical to my BeerSmith printout. One of the best purchases I ever made. $23.00 at Birdman Brewing is the cheapest I've seen it.

OG, FG, Volumes in and out of all vessels, mash pH, mash gravity. Once you have a track record, especially with volumes, you can setup a very accurate equipment profile in BeerSmith...once that's done then it's like TopherM says, the software handles all the fine details and you don't have to fret over all the measuring.

My measure always things are: boil gravity (so I know my starting point and when to stop the boil), and volume into fermentor. Other than that, fermentation temps are my main concern.

TopherM said:

One of the best purchases I ever made. $23.00 at Birdman Brewing is the cheapest I've seen it.

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Actually just $21.89!

GET IT HERE!

I track ingredients...

I typically forget to write everything else down

BirdmanBrewingCo said:

Actually just $21.89!GET IT HERE!

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Nice marketing! I just placed an order! :rockin:

I track everything in Beersmith and make notes on ferment temperatures, tastes all the way from first sampling mid-ferment until bottled/kegged.

Now I can go back and say "Hey, I'm getting an off flavor in this batch, it's similar to an off flavor in this other batch from last year, what's similar between the two? Ahh, yeast and higher ferment temp, bingo!" So handy!