Tracking your beers

I know you guys all track your recipes and how they taste so you know what you want to try and change-- so how do you guys format your "write-ups" on your beers? I want to start tracking my beers (I've got copies of very basic stuff on my first ones-- but I want to get more detailed), what're the standard things you guys track?

Beersmith... Its worth $20. Seriously.

Composition book...staples...2 dollars. I use painters tape and a sharpie to mark whats going on directly on the carboys. Each time i take gravity, i use another peice of tape... When I'm done, i transfer the gravity readings by date, temperatures they were taken at, yeast used etc all into this book. Promash keeps my recipes and the notebook takes care of the rest.

Not all of us track each beer. I did when I started, but it seemed like it was a hassle. I've yet (knock on wood) to have anything seriously wrong happen. And the little things that have I think I can just remember to do better on next time.

But I agree with the above poster that Beersmith is worth every penny of twenty dollars. I can certainly see where someone wanting to keep digital records of brew sessions could use it.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

Not all of us track each beer. I did when I started, but it seemed like it was a hassle. I've yet (knock on wood) to have anything seriously wrong happen. And the little things that have I think I can just remember to do better on next time.

But I agree with the above poster that Beersmith is worth every penny of twenty dollars. I can certainly see where someone wanting to keep digital records of brew sessions could use it.

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I downloaded the trial version but some of it seems to have me lost. I think I have a decent grasp of the vocabulary, but some things I am essentially

Just play around with it. I use it to tweak recipes. However if it isn't for you, the Staples suggestion above was a good one too.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

Just play around with it. I use it to tweak recipes. However if it isn't for you, the Staples suggestion above was a good one too.

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I think I need to work my way through it. It's perfect for me because I'm wickedly obsessive compulsive about organization-- so it should work out perfectly when I understand it all.

I use beersmith to make recipes and tweak them, but I keep a brew log in a notebook. I write the recipe, then keep notes as I brew. Everytime I do something I add a note.

Honestly, in the beginning, it isn't that big of a deal. There are so many variables that you aren't going to keep track of that it doesn't matter too much.

If you want to get serious about it, you will want to keep track of everything possible. Beersmith, a notebook, whatever. For a long time, I just kept appending to a text file in notepad. There's no right or wrong answer. Just keep recording everything you can and the solution will present itself.

s3n8 said:

Beersmith... Its worth $20. Seriously.

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Yep.

Just buy the damn program.

For my first 13 batches of brew I keep notes in a spiral notebook. Now I have Beersmith, but I still keep notes in the spiral. (Computers go down at random times.)

But Beersmith is great for working up recipes and being able to closely predict what to expect.

If we want to keep track of detailed things about the recipe (especially if you're trying to tweak a recipe) you could print off a bunch of these:

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/BeerScoreSheet-Form.pdf

and keep them in a folder. Maybe write the recipe on the back or staple it to the sheet.

NOTE: If you ever have a brew reviewed by a national level judge, be prepared for some constructive criticism on how to get to that next level....

i neglected to ask before but what are you trying to achieve? The only reason i take vigorous notes on batches is so that i can reproduce them if they turn out amazing....

I found this. I think it will help you
http://brewyourownbrew.com/brewing_notes.pdf

Beersmith, keep notes while brewing and add them to your recipe in Beersmith when finished, like everyone else has said it is well worth the $20. I impressed with it, after my trial I bought it. It is helpful in many ways.

scinerd3000 said:

i neglected to ask before but what are you trying to achieve? The only reason i take vigorous notes on batches is so that i can reproduce them if they turn out amazing....

I found this. I think it will help you
http://brewyourownbrew.com/brewing_notes.pdf

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Thats funny that is my LHBS

Schnitzengiggle said:

Thats funny that is my LHBS

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its actually a decent basis for documenting. I wish they had more room for certain things and less for others but its a good place to start. I don't use those much anymore but it gives me ideas of what else to log...

I really like some of the ideas from BeerSmith, but I think I may create a .doc file that I can alter a little for a few things for my own sanity. Again, still trying to get used to it-- but pretty cool.

I'm in with the Beersmith crowd, I did 1 kit then hoped right into making my own. With Beersmith i can keep track of almost everything as well as make alternative versions of ones i like but would like to maybe try differently

AndyC said:

I downloaded the trial version but some of it seems to have me lost. I think I have a decent grasp of the vocabulary, but some things I am essentially

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A lot of people like Beersmith, but I'm not one of them. I found Promash much easier to use. It has a great tutorial and great help on almost every page, although I hear that the help does not work with Vista.

-a.

I use Beer Calculus. Before I brew I print it up, calculate the mash and keep notes on the paper. If I loose the paper I still have most of it online. I lost a bunch of Beersmith files on a dead hard drive. The best way I know of is to find what works for you and be consistent with it.

Conroe said:

If I loose the paper I still have most of it online. I lost a bunch of Beersmith files on a dead hard drive.

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I lost one batch's data before I took advantage of BeerAlchemy's ability to creat a single-file archive. I emailed it to my gmail account for offsite backup.

Might check if BS does the same.

For Apple/Mac users, qBrew is a pretty vanialla program that allows you to upload your own recipies. It has a bunch of pre-defined fields in the database, so adding a recipie is pretty easy. It is also free. qBrew. It looks like you can use it on Windows machines as well.

Here is the form that I keep on my counter to log every bit of detail I possibly can about every brew. I brew just about all original recipes so I'm using these notes extensively to figure out what is giving me what.

This will enable you to organize some VERY detailed information about your brew. Read pages 1&2, print 1 copy of 3-8 for each beer before brewing.

Big credit to Kaiser for this resource:

http://braukaiser.com/documents/brewing_logbook_english_metric.pdf

I usually document them in Recipator then cut and paste them to WORD docs.