Android BrewAide-Brew Day Assistant- Free

I think the problem is where they exported from, the format for beerxml isnt suppose to have anything but numbers but it seems it has some letters, so working on making it handle it

The App's working great for me, no complaints. Keep up the great work.

Just put another update up real quick, just a small one to fix some bugs nothing new:

-Sparge Calculations should be correct now, tested every combination I could come up with in beersmith
-Made the recipe reader idiot proof so now if other programs dont format their BeerXML right, it corrects it
-Fixed a few bugs that started popping up

awesome... now go have a beer or three

thats the plan, in about 2 hours some friends are coming over, gonna test the app and brew a Kiwi Witbier and then grill some ribs.

Only problem is my friends know im a good cook (cause I force them to be guinea pigs ) so whenever they want to do cookouts or group dinners I get stuck doing all the cooking. At least I enjoy cooking

lol... I had the same problem when I was active duty.. Hmmm... come to think of it.. I know the best way to make sure I have a packed house for a party is to say I'm providing beer and BBQ..

So sometimes I really hate programming, just finished brewing/grilling and the boil timer doesnt work But the mash timer worked perfectly and they are basically the same code just a change in variables. So angry that it wasnt working dug back into the code tonight to figure it out. I missed one little thing that caused it to go all funky. Took me 30 minutes to find it and all i had to do was put in a "break" which basically just keeps it from running some code. So updating it again so the boil timer works properly, sorry if anyone tried to use it and it didnt work.

Adeering said:

Estimated ABV is displayed on the recipe view page. FG isnt exactly displayed, however if you have entered the information (either on beersmith/BeerXML file) or you input it in the BrewAide spot and updated the file, then it is displayed on the brewsteps page

As for Total Hops/Grains not displayed in its own spot but can easily be figured out looking at the recipe view.

Some things are left out for the android version due to lack of space and keeping things as condense and easily managed as possible. Because of the lack of space putting all the information would require multiple views which makes it less user friendly to have to switch. Now Im constantly adding stuff and working more into what is available and Ill add those things onto the list to try and add, but not promising anything

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Well if you can get the actual abv on the app it would be more helpful than the estimated abv. I brew a lot of Saison and the estimated abv in beersmith is never close to my actual abv since beersmith doesn't seem to factor in the high attenuation of saison yeasts.

Also I have the FG in all my recipes on beersmith but I sure don't see a spot for it in the Brew Steps page. I just see Pre boil, OG and batch volume boxes.

One of the next updates will have a spot on the recipe view for displaying actual numbers, will the following: actual abv, actual og, actual fg, carb vol range/carb vol actual

Just downloaded the app, can't wait to give it a try! Great work!

Sorry there hasnt been much update lately, been busy, slowly working on putting in some new display categories for the recipe view and gonna add in the ability to bring up ingredient information.

Good news is Im getting steady downloads each day and no new errors since the most current update.

How is everyone liking it, and any features that I havent mentioned that people are dying for?

I love the app. it's going camping with me this weekend so I can do a brew on Saturday for Big Brew day. MUCH easier to take my phone than my laptop.

Adeering said:

Sorry there hasnt been much update lately, been busy, slowly working on putting in some new display categories for the recipe view and gonna add in the ability to bring up ingredient information.

Good news is Im getting steady downloads each day and no new errors since the most current update.

How is everyone liking it, and any features that I havent mentioned that people are dying for?

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One feature I would love would be to have pre-boil post-boil gravity's given in brix for refractometer use right in the brew steps. It's not something that BeerSmith does today, but I've asked the author for it.

TheTooth said:

One feature I would love would be to have pre-boil post-boil gravity's given in brix for refractometer use right in the brew steps. It's not something that BeerSmith does today, but I've asked the author for it.

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Not a bad idea, i actually wouldnt mind that either, Ill add it to the list, the only problem I foresee is the FG measurements arent a direct correlation, so it would be something that would only apply to pre-fermentation gravity which makes a little harder to implement. Maybe Ill have it show them in parenthesis, but not capable of entering it in.

On another note, if you enjoy it please rate it, seems only people who have a problem rate most the time as I got another 1 star because of a random bug where the persons external storage is messed up so causes it to crash. Sucks not being able to trouble shoot directly before they rate.

Adeering said:

Not a bad idea, i actually wouldnt mind that either, Ill add it to the list, the only problem I foresee is the FG measurements arent a direct correlation, so it would be something that would only apply to pre-fermentation gravity which makes a little harder to implement. Maybe Ill have it show them in parenthesis, but not capable of entering it in.

On another note, if you enjoy it please rate it, seems only people who have a problem rate most the time as I got another 1 star because of a random bug where the persons external storage is messed up so causes it to crash. Sucks not being able to trouble shoot directly before they rate.

Click to expand...

Cool... SG in parenthesis with no entry is cool with me. I just want to know what value I'm trying to hit pre-boil with my refractometer. I'll adjust to hit that value at that point anyway, so entering a different value isn't necessary to me. FG is a different story and I don't need that on brew-day anyway.

I haven't used it for a brew day yet (will do next weekend), but I'll definitely give it a rating based on my usage so far (which has been great).

Thanks!

Just put up a small update with a few fixes and a couple small features added. Heres the release notes:

Updates:
-Added Carb Bar to recipe view with input
-Added option to update recipe on close
-Fixed random rare bug where it crashes on open (only had one report of it)
-Added Brix to Estimated Pre-fermentation Gravity display
-Fixed minor bug with refractometer original calculation
-Added Info to Recipe view (Total Grain, Total Hop, Measure OG, Measured FG, Measured ABV)

Other Info:
I bought a laptop this week, so when I go on vacation I will be able to continue programming (and its visiting family vacation so will have time and want to program cause they dont live in the most fun place)

Next features Im working on are adding a few more tools and the shopping list not sure which ill do first though

I'm looking forward to using this today. I'm glad you added the brix to the prefermentaion gravity views. Is it possible to record those gravities in brix? I know the refractometer tool is right there but it would be convenient to just enter the reading in brix.

Its on my list, just havent decided exactly how I want to handle it yet

When I use the timers, both mask and boil, I get a force close error whenever I select timer from the notification bar. The timers start but as soon as I leave the app with the home button or if the phone goes in to standby I can not go back to the timers without a force close. I have the most recent version installed and I have even uninstalled and reinstalled the app. Any suggestions to what would cause this?

Not sure, I dont get that error, report it if you havent already and ill look into it

Thanks, how do I report it?

When the app force closes and thr popup comes up says "report" or "force stop" hit report

So just played around with it and had the crash as well. Think I fixed it. Just updated with the fix, let me know if that works now

Oddly when I get the force close I don't have a report button. I've seen it before on other apps that have crashed but not this time. The error says com.brewbuddy stopped unexpectedly. Please try again. Force close is the only option. If no one else is having this problem it must be something with my phone. Thanks for trying.

I updated the app, current version is 2.3.1, try the update and let me know if it still happens

Well done! The latest update fixed it. Thank you.

fspinale said:

Well done! The latest update fixed it. Thank you.

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Sweet glad its working for you now, hope you are enjoying it

So After a little over a month since I released it has a decent number of installs (around 500) but Im hoping to increase that number, anybody have any free/really cheap ideas on how to increase the number of installs?

One of the big things is for those using it to rate it, as the more positive reviews the higher on the search results and the more likely for people to find it. Trying to get it higher on the list because currently the older apps are taking over the first page of results, and they havent been updated in over a year for the most part

Really like the app, but I cannot use it until it is able to separate out the recipes in a standard BeerSmith recipe file. Meaning not forcing me to export my recipes all the time. The ideal solution would be syncing my beersmith recipes folder with dropbox. Then no matter what changes I made in beersmith it would be automatically synced with dropbox and Brewaide. I think if you had a prompt after opening a beersmith recipe file that contains multiple recipes for the user to choose which recipe they want this would be a very awesome and useful app.

Cheers!

mors said:

Really like the app, but I cannot use it until it is able to separate out the recipes in a standard BeerSmith recipe file. Meaning not forcing me to export my recipes all the time. The ideal solution would be syncing my beersmith recipes folder with dropbox. Then no matter what changes I made in beersmith it would be automatically synced with dropbox and Brewaide. I think if you had a prompt after opening a beersmith recipe file that contains multiple recipes for the user to choose which recipe they want this would be a very awesome and useful app.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

I have been working on a way to implement this, but the problem arises with the fact that depending on how many recipes you have in the file it can be very slow and inefficient to get all the data. Not only that but updating the recipe with measurements becomes a lot more complex as well as saving previous recipe.

I have been playing with it and while it is a pretty simple task to allow you to pick which recipe when opening up, it causes many troubles on the rest of the functions and makes the rest of the work too complicated to make it worth it. Also with just the 30 recipes I have it takes a good 5 seconds to open up the file and give you the option to pick a recipe

It would be so much nicer if beersmith saved the recipes as individual files instead of as one big file but have to make due with what is available.

Question for the Users of BrewAide:

I have been looking/implementing the ability to handle the default recipe file from BeerSmith (as requested by a few people). Here is the solution I am determining is the most efficient/capable: I currently have it to where if you select a recipe file that has more than one recipe in it the app loads them and gives you a popup to select which recipe to view. Then shows that recipe.

The question is with lots of recipes saved the amount of time it takes to load the recipes becomes quite long, for example with 30 recipes its taking my tablet (which would take longer on phones) about 5 seconds to load it. Is this feature still worth using? Now im working on making it so once the file is loaded (either on startup or once selected, if you select it again it wont reload it and already have it in memory)

Let me know, as I wont release the update until I get a clear decision. This will not effect the ability to open single recipe exports and will still work the same on those and BeerXML (which does anyone know if you can export multiple BeerXML recipes?)

Thank You

Adeering said:

Question for the Users of BrewAide:

I have been looking/implementing the ability to handle the default recipe file from BeerSmith (as requested by a few people). Here is the solution I am determining is the most efficient/capable: I currently have it to where if you select a recipe file that has more than one recipe in it the app loads them and gives you a popup to select which recipe to view. Then shows that recipe.

The question is with lots of recipes saved the amount of time it takes to load the recipes becomes quite long, for example with 30 recipes its taking my tablet (which would take longer on phones) about 5 seconds to load it. Is this feature still worth using? Now im working on making it so once the file is loaded (either on startup or once selected, if you select it again it wont reload it and already have it in memory)

Let me know, as I wont release the update until I get a clear decision. This will not effect the ability to open single recipe exports and will still work the same on those and BeerXML (which does anyone know if you can export multiple BeerXML recipes?)

Thank You

Click to expand...

personally, I don't find it that big of a deal to export recipes in single files. it takes about 15 seconds to export and save in a dropbox location. that list gets updated each time you tell the app to use dropbox for the location. to me the nice thing about this app is that it's small and fast. Would it be nice to never have to export a file again? sure, but does not having it make this app not worth using. HELL NO. Right now I use BrewAide on my phone. I have over 100 recipes in beer smith that would take forever on my phone to load. With the current configuration of Brewaide I selected the most often used recipes or ones that are planned for brewing this year and exported them. I can always add more to the dropbox folder as I need to.

This part might step on some toes around here but I feel it needs to be said. BrewAide is a tool to use in conjunction with not only Beer Smith but also other programs that save in BeerXML. It isn't designed to replace them.

It adds the ability to check on your ingredients list, it adds timers, it lets you record some basic info at the time of brewing. It helps by providing the basic needs during the brew itself. It however should NOT be thought of as a replacement for the program you use to create the recipes in the first place. Constantly asking for hundreds of feature to be added are taking it away from its initial purpose which will not only slow the app down, but can introduce countless bugs to a program that works great in it's current form. Not to mention that the person doing the programming is an ACTIVE DUTY member of the military. He isn't a big company with a lot of programmers sitting there waiting to code in feature requests.

Use it like it is intended and it's a great app and does the job of 2 other apps I was using before (Brewzor and OI Countdown). Start expecting it to do everything that beer smith can do with the speed and ease of beer smith and you'll be disappointed. For that you'll have to wait for Brad Smith to make the android app for beer smith.

Yes you can export multiple recipes in BeerXML. although I have have had limited success with apps that would accept BeerXML with multiple recipes.

While I agree with you for the most part there are a couple things that im considering:

1. This doesnt take away any function or slow down the overall speed of the app, what it will slow down is opening of files with multiple recipes, if you choose to export your single recipes everything will function the same and be just as fast

2. This does allow for a nice feature that will enable people to make changes quickly and not have to worry about multiple exports (which is nice if you are making changes a couple quick changes on brewday, which i tend to do)

But I do agree and want to stress that this is a recipe reader and not a replacement to BeerSmith or any other software for editing recipes. So as of now I have the feature in there with the warning that it will increase load time for files with multiple recipes. But doesnt change the speed of doing it the normal way.

Adeering said:

Sweet glad its working for you now, hope you are enjoying it

So After a little over a month since I released it has a decent number of installs (around 500) but Im hoping to increase that number, anybody have any free/really cheap ideas on how to increase the number of installs?

One of the big things is for those using it to rate it, as the more positive reviews the higher on the search results and the more likely for people to find it. Trying to get it higher on the list because currently the older apps are taking over the first page of results, and they havent been updated in over a year for the most part

Click to expand...

I have given this the 5-star rating as soon as I downloaded and installed a few weeks ago. One idea that got me to check out brewshuffle.com was an ad on the right side of my Facebook that popped up. All it said was "Share your Homebrew!" It sounded interesting to me so I clicked on it, read about BrewShuffle and then signed up. It's a cool way to list what homebrews you have available to share, people can see where you are located, then you can swap homebrews with people close to you. I'm not sure how cheap it was for this guy to advertise like that on Facebook but might be worth checking out.

I appreciate the integration of the recipe into the brew timer. In addition, I like the ability to view the recipe for shopping purposes. Finally, I really appreciate the constant updates and the hard work put into this app.

Although I don't see myself using the default recipe file from Beersmith, I do see how that feature will be appealing to some. I will continue to export my recipes into Dropbox as I need them.

Thanks for updating the brew steps with the brix readings! That, with the timers, should make my next brew day easier. Looking forward to using it to brew a Doppelbock next weekend!

One recipe at a time is cool with me. Exporting a recipe to my dropbox folder is literally two clicks for me in Beersmith after I finish my recipe, so it's hardly a big effort. It's way easier than manually setting up timers in some other android app and having to convert gravity to brix in yet another app.

I agree that even if it is very slow it is still better than nothing (seems like maybe you could optimize it and parse out the recipe names etc..) Obviously you wouldn't want to implement anything that makes it change how it currently opens a single recipe.

I am missing something but how do I get my recipes from Beersmith into the drop box folder ? I thought I was supposed to go into Beersmith and select - File > Change Document Directories > Apps > Brewbuddy. When I go into that folder I don't even see any recipes.

Edit - I see file names recipe, recipe1, recipe 2 etc. I guess I have to create a file in the Brewbuddy folder called recipes ? I did that but what are all the other files in that folder ? How do I just get the recipes from Beersmith ?

Wingfan13 said:

I am missing something but how do I get my recipes from Beersmith into the drop box folder ? I thought I was supposed to go into Beersmith and select - File > Change Document Directories > Apps > Brewbuddy. When I go into that folder I don't even see any recipes.

Edit - I see file names recipe, recipe1, recipe 2 etc. I guess I have to create a file in the Brewbuddy folder called recipes ? I did that but what are all the other files in that folder ? How do I just get the recipes from Beersmith ?

Click to expand...

you have to have a drop box folder Apps\Brewbuddy\Recipes then in beersmith. right click a recipe, select export, then given it a name and export it to the drop box folder. for each recipe that you want to export do the same thing. one at a time for now. remember that each time you make a change to the recipe you need to export it again

Implementing the change to include all BS recipes while using 1 bsmx file is a benefit IMHO. I have about 150 or so recipes in my BS, so it may take a LONG time for me to open it. This would have saved me some trouble last week though.

I exported a recipe, went to the LHBS to get some grain, opened the app....I had exported the wrong recipe. That was a bit of a snag. Also it would be nice as I'm in situations where someone is interested in the recipe of the beer they are trying. If I could pull it right up on my phone, that would be great.

One thing I would suggest though. If it could be implemented to change what directory in dropbox is used, that would go well with the other change. If that change isn't implemented, I would still need to export my recipes everytime I add a new one. That or change beersmith to a different location. I already have BS set to use my dropbox to save things

So Im just doing the final checks on the feature, should be working.

If it could be implemented to change what directory in dropbox is used

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Ill look into it and see how easy it is to change that, the Dropbox feature comes with some limitation set by dropbox and one is the app folder, not sure how hard or if even possible to look at a different folder but Ill add it to the list, for now you will need to do one of two things, export all recipes to the app folder, or change the default beersmith folder to the app folder

Edit:
Another possible plus to making this feature now is it might allow easier integration with the cloud service once I start working on that. Still waiting on it to officially go live and need to figure some stuff out, but Im assuming Brad is probably storing the recipes on there in a similar fashion so having the ability to read multiple recipes from a single bsmx file might come in handy

Edit Again:
After doing some research on the Dropbox capability, unless I request the ability for my app to have full access to individuals dropbox the ability to select the folder wont be allowed. As this is not something that dropbox approves easily I dont foresee a reason to try and get it, as the app works without it. Also it would change the way it accesses files currently on dropbox which would confuse and cause problems with an update.