Brewing Journal or Log

Hey guys,

I have brewed two batches so far and haven't taken the time to take notes of everything I do while brewing. Can anyone tell me what would be some great information to keep in a brewing log while I am brewing?

My brewing log contains all of the potential variables that can influence a particular batch, ie:
Ambient Temperature
Mash Temperature and time maintained for that temperature
Sparge Temperature
Any subsitutions or alterations from original recipe
The type of yeast used, whether dry or hydrated or used a starter
The OG (Original Gravity) with Temperature
Anything out of the ordinary, example a fly landed in my cooled wort, forgot to add an ingredient at the right time, etc

I bought a cheap laptop and I keep all my brewlogs in word format in a folder on my desktop and it works great.
After fermentation I take a FG (Final Gravity) and put the ABV into the log.

Hope this helps

My log entries are generally like this:

DD/MM/YY - Batch #nn - Brew Name and Style

Ingredients:

- malt types and amounts
- hops types and amounts, aa% and schedule
- other additives or adjuncts
- yeast strain

Method:

- water amounts, treatments, temperatures
- mashing schedule and comments
- lautering schedule and comments
- boiling schedule with hop additions
- chilling comments
- rack to primary
- record original gravity
- yeast preparation and pitching

Brew Day Comments:

- initial taste and other observations
- things you would do differently next time

DD/MM/YY - fermentation observations
DD/MM/YY - dry hoppping as necessary
DD/MM/YY - bottling day details, final gravity and taste comments

I knew I was a piker, this thread has confirmed it. All I do is hit "save" in Beersmith.

Anytime I do anything to the beer from extract/grain to bottle I make a note of it in beersmith.

Addition times during the boil, what time I pitch, when fermentation starts, temperatures, how many bottles I get, etc. I find that the act of writing things down helps me remember all the little steps I take throughout the process. My first two batches I didn't take any notes, and 1.5 months later I can barely remember the SG readings, let alone what temperatures I steeped my grains at.

I've now finished 5 batches... Each one I do something a little different, and if one turns out amazing, I want to be able to look back and see what I did that could make a difference.

Pappers said:

I knew I was a piker, this thread has confirmed it. All I do is hit "save" in Beersmith.

Click to expand...

I still regret the money I spent on Beersmith. With a 1 dollar calculator and a little knowledge, a pencil and pad, Beersmith is the pits.........

There are some great worksheets on http://www.brewerslair.com

You can record all of the information about your ingredients, keep notes, record gravities, etc. There is one for extract as well as all grain. If you are looking for a good place to start, I would try these. . .

Pappers said:

I knew I was a piker, this thread has confirmed it. All I do is hit "save" in Beersmith.

Click to expand...

I type a little bit into the notes field at the bottom sometimes, but that's all I do also.

I like the forms found here.

Eric

Radical Brewing has one. But once I started using software printing out recipes/brew day instructions, I find I just write in the notes section anything of interest/key measurements that happened on brew day or during fermentation. These get slipped into page protectors and put in a 3-ring binder.

I also use masking tape that travels with the beer from primary (to secondary, if one) to keg, that tracks some of the key info as well.

Beer Smith and a Legal Pad. I write everything on the legal pad (ambient temp, strike temp, MLT temp loss, mash temp, mash loss, 1st run volume, sparge temp & volume, final volume, & gravity readings...and anything else that was unusual or that I wished had gone better).

I type all those notes from the legal pad into Beer Smith.

Thanks a lot everyone for the helpful responses!

I created a data base using Openoffice. Then I created a couple of worksheets with it. I just fill in the blanks and can tell it to either print out a recipe or just the notes or pick any details of any brew and get a report. For example just beers made with a certain yeast or beers made with a particular malt.

Sudbuster said:

I still regret the money I spent on Beersmith. With a 1 dollar calculator and a little knowledge, a pencil and pad, Beersmith is the pits.........

Click to expand...

That's a silly statement. You really regret the $25 or whatever BS was? While I believe that Beersmith has it's faults and quirks, it is still a huge asset to my brewing process.

If I want to send someone a recipe that I did, or share it with my brew club, all I need to do is export it.

I know how to figure out efficiency manually, but why? I know how to do long division, but why would I sit there with a pencil/paper when I can hit the calculator on my iPhone or in Windows?

When making up a recipe, I can build it around a certain efficiency and then change that number in Beersmith and see what my gravity will be if I over/undershoot, so I know if it will stay in style or not.

I can go on and on with more examples, but you get the point.

I do agree with you that a calculator and a little knowledge is all you need. In fact, I think it is an important learning experience to become a better brewer to learn how to calculate things out by hand. Our brew club just had our Teach A Friend to brew day and I didn't bring my laptop with my, just a print out of the recipe. I needed to do some calculations in my head and on paper and was able to because I've learned how to do that stuff, but I hardly think $25 is a waste on a very useful tool (even with it's faults)

i keep notes in the blank space of beersmith brew day sheets, i then input them all back into beersmith and save it. I usually export and back up my sheets after any/every change

EVERYTHING....make note of it...for instance, you could mess something up, like fermentation temperature, taste the beer and it is better than the same batch you created last time with the right temps...your screw ups could turn into good things. It also will help you realize what went wrong later on down the road.

Wow, I like the Radical Brewing sheet, especially for extract brews!

I prefer Kai Troetter's brewing log, which covers all sorts of options and exact measurements. He makes it available in both metric and standard formats:

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keeping_Log

I made up a spreadsheet that literally has 26 different tabs. At this point, I think it does just about everything that Beersmith does, only I cobbled it together myself. Only one of those tabs is for my brewing notes, but it has the following columns:

Batch (number in line)
Comp (entered in a competition, etc.)
Beer Style
SRM
Efficiency
Recipe (i.e., where I got the recipe from)
Base Grains used (varieties, not amounts)
Style (Ale, Lager, Hybrid, or Sour)
Hops (varieties, not amounts)
Water Source
Ferm. Plan (28 days in primary, 28 days lager, etc.)
Brewed (date it was brewed)
Days Aged (days since it was brewed)
Yeast
Ferm. Temp. (Avg)
OG
FG
Attenuation
ABV (Est.)
Ferm. Lag Time
Secondary (Date it went to secondary, if at all)
Tertiary (same as above)
Packaged (Date)
Packaging (keg, bottle)
Amt. packaged
Notes
Taste (1-50)
Ready to Drink Date


My wife says I'm OCD, but I just don't see it...

khiddy said:

Wow, I like the Radical Brewing sheet, especially for extract brews!

I prefer Kai Troetter's brewing log, which covers all sorts of options and exact measurements. He makes it available in both metric and standard formats:

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keeping_Log

Click to expand...

OMG! That's a lot of blanks for this n00b.

I usually print out my recipe and make notes on that until I copy everything over to Beersmith.

This solves two problems. First, its not always handy to log notes on the computer during the busy periods of brewing.

Second, paper is not a good storage mechanism - meaning it doesn't get along well with liquids - and brewing involves a lot of liquids (and not just on brew day). I can usually manage to keep my notes dry during the day of the brew, but I find that paper is not a good long term solution.

+1 to beersmith

I print out the brewsheets for the assistant brewer (IE new guy) It makes a nice visual aide has plenty of note space.

I then add stuff to the noted field on the computer.

I list everyhing from anomalies to impressions in my notes.
The biggest reason though I love beersmith is it tells you what stuff should be based on incredients etc. For instance I found out my lhbs calculates ibu based on a 5g boil yet sells extract kits and has you use only 2g of water. There is quite a bit of difference according to beersmith.