Take good notes!

A piece of advice, keep a good brewday notebook.

My story. I brewed up a wonderful APA with citra and amarillo. I'm down to my last six, so I was getting ready to brew this again and went to my brew notebook and noticed I only had written down the grains I had used and no other information. I'm going to have to recreate this masterpiece trying to put together the hop schedule from scratch.

--end rant--

Good advice.

I have a knack for taking copious, detailed notes on nearly every detail, every decision, and every thought I have during the process.

Unfortunately, I also have a knack for limiting my omissions to only those few bits of information that will be needed at some time in the future.

Beersmith is saving me now. I am TERRIBLE at taking notes. It's like most people think, Oh I'll remember that, piece of cake. 10 minutes later ... was that 1oz or 1.5oz? DAMNIT! Thank you Beersmith!

I use google docs (ahem, drive) for keeping recipes, notes, and schedules.

I use the brewing assistant app for recipes and when i brew & keep docs in the quick office app that came in my phone. Thumb typing isn't the most efficient way to track but it does keep everything handy.

I can usually remember the important things for a few days---I'm obsessive enough about the brewing details that I usually remember the important details and measurements for a few days. However, I try to keep notes just in case, so I always print out a recipe sheet and stick it on the fridge. As I add malts to the grain bag, hops/extract to the boil, etc, I check them off. I also keep notes on the sheet, noting actual mash temperatures and volumes, any "game-time" modifications to the recipe, etc. Then whenever I get around to it, I write these up neatly in my log.

So my brew day notes are generally very complete. It's the other stuff that gets sketchy. The worst is on brew days, when I almost always forget to write down the priming sugar quantity. I also like to keep qualitative notes on the fermentation progress and record any temperature changes, but these tend to be hit or miss.

This is my biggest fault as a brewer.... but to some it's art to some it's science. Hey, whatever's clever right?