Organizing recipes?

How do you organize your recipes?

Right now, I'm creating recipes in Beer XML using BrewMate and naming the file with the type of beer and the date brewed. I use the notes section to log brewing, bottling, tasting, etc.

Don't have a lot of recipes yet, but I'm thinking about how to organize them. It would be great if I could search through them for particular hops used, grains, etc.

how do you get the xml files to open in a readable format? I have a new laptop and when I tried to open an x,l file it was like reading a computer program.

I use BeerSmith, you can create folders to orgainize how you want. For example you could create a folder for all of your beers that use Centennial has a primary hop. It could get a bit complicated if you have 20 folders, all containing duplicate recipies. The default setup is a folder for recipies, your brew log, which is really just recipies you've copied over from the main recipe folder and I think 1 or 2 others. I created a new sandbox folder where I can modify recipies without changing my original.. which I've locked down to prevent edits. You can then sort all of your recipies that are in a particular folder by style, name, etc.. Works well for me. However, I don't think it lets you easily sort by hops or grain used unless you create folder(s) specifically for those. There might be another way I haven't learned yet, the tool is surprising powerful for my needs.

I organize them in Beer Smith on my system as well as in my physical brew log... I have a "Brewed" folder in Beer Smith as well as a "Maybe" and "On Deck" to keep them all straight. I make sure the brewed date is accurate on them, as well as put in notes as to when things were done, like adding oak, other flavor elements, and details on the priming solution. I also number the recipes in the "Brewed" directory (01, 02, etc) so that it's easy to see, at a glance, which brew it was. The brew log book is in order too, and includes things other than beer (my mead batches plus the hard lemonade still in process).

I like having the physical log as well as the electronic one... Helps to ensure that no matter what happens, I'll have a brew history.

This reminds me, I need to sync up my laptop and tower Beer Smith information...

sheeldon said:

how do you get the xml files to open in a readable format? I have a new laptop and when I tried to open an x,l file it was like reading a computer program.

Click to expand...

The consumer for most XML is software, not the human eyeball, if that makes sense. That's why it looks like code, it pretty much is exactly that, except it's just data. In otherwords, a lot of programs are expecting XML data feeds that contain all of the data that application uses, displays, etc. Those programs massage the XML and display it how the developer wanted it to be displayed. The raw XML by itself, isn't of much use to you or me, it's just a data feed for an application. It can however be read by you fairly easily when you learn how XML is structured. It's a lot like HTML. If you are going to write your own home brew software, having your data stored in XML format is a very smart way to go.

If you want to make raw XML presentable, you'll need to feed it into an application that was designed to use that specific XML you are looking at, this takes place at the presentation layer of your application. In web applications, (for example, if you tried opening an xml doc in your web browser) you usually need to couple the XML with an XSLT (style sheet) to format that data and display it how you want. Generally speaking, non-developers won't have much of a use for XML aside from importing it into programs that can read it. A lot of the brewing software out there can accept XML formatted data... so you can move your recipies from one application to another for example.

BrewMate puts an xslt entry in the file that allows you to view it formatted nicely in IE. I'm surprised that other programs don't all do that.

davel57 said:

BrewMate puts an xslt entry in the file that allows you to view it formatted nicely in IE. I'm surprised that other programs don't all do that.

Click to expand...

Beersmith does this too, it's under the file menu, Export As option. Pretty sure most the top tools can export in a web viewable format. It probably isn't used much in Beersmith because most users won't want to leave the application to view their data, great for sharing with others though.

didn't know I could do that with Beersmith. I need to take a better look at its capabilities and learn to work with it. Can someone send me an xml file so I can play with it and try to open.

Another issue, how do you post recipe's as folks do on HBT?

Thanks,

Sheldon

sheeldon said:

didn't know I could do that with Beersmith. I need to take a better look at its capabilities and learn to work with it. Can someone send me an xml file so I can play with it and try to open.

Another issue, how do you post recipe's as folks do on HBT?

Thanks,

Sheldon

Click to expand...

I tried to upload an xml file of one of my recipies, but the forum only supports a few file types.. Actually, you can generate one yourself if you have beer smith, just select a folder with recipes in it, then select File > Export As and select the BeerXML file format. As you'd expect, this creates an XML file that contains the XML tags recognized by BeerXML (also if you google BeerXML, you'll find more recipies in XML there.


to post recipes, you can just copy / paste from beersmith into the forum - like this: (note there are a lot of different ways to do this, and this is just one way.. Just highlight your whole brew sheet, and copy it with ctrl + C / paste it into the forum with Ctrl + V here.. There are probably other ways that retain the formatting a bit better... but that's the really easy way.. as an example..

Mark's IPA

Brew Type: Partial Mash Date: 11/13/2010
Style: American IPA Brewer: Mark
Batch Size: 5.50 gal Assistant Brewer: Iggy
Boil Volume: 6.86 gal Boil Time: 70 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Brewing Steps
Check Time Step
11/13/2010 Clean and prepare equipment.
-- Measure ingredients, crush grains.
-- Prepare Water (7.47 gal total)
Amount Item Type
5.50 gal Denver, Colorado Water
-- Prepare Ingredients for Mash
Amount Item Type
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain
1.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain
0.50 lb Debittered Belgium Black (24.0 SRM) Grain
0.50 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain
2 min Mash Ingredients
Mash In: Add 3.75 qt of water at 169.4 F
60 min - Hold mash at 154.0 F for 60 min
-- Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 2.98 gal of 168.0 F water.
-- Batch Sparge Round 2: Sparge with 3.55 gal of 168.0 F water.
-- Add water to achieve boil volume of 6.86 gal
-- Estimated Pre-boil Gravity is: 1.047 SG with all grains/extracts added
Boil for 70 min Boil Ingredients
Boil Amount Item Type
70 min 6.50 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract
55 min 0.75 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (55 min) Hops
40 min 0.75 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (40 min) Hops
20 min 1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops
10 min 0.28 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0 min 1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops
-- Cool wort to fermentation temperature
-- Add water (as needed) to achieve volume of 5.50 gal
-- Siphon wort to primary fermenter and aerate wort.
-- Add Ingredients to Fermenter
Amount Item Type
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast-Ale
11/13/2010 Measure Original Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.056 SG)
11/13/2010 Measure Batch Volume: ________ (Estimate: 5.50 gal)
7 days Ferment in primary for 7 days at 68.0 F
11/20/2010 Transfer to Secondary Fermenter
14 days Ferment in secondary for 14 days at 68.0 F
12/4/2010 Measure Final Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.013 SG)
-- Keg beer at 60.0 F at a pressure of 21.6 PSI
4.0 Weeks Age for 4.0 Weeks at 52.0 F
1/1/2011 Sample and enjoy!
Taste Rating (50 possible points): 35.0

Notes
This was a BIAB partial mash as my mashtun was under construction at the time.

Organize your recipes in a word doc. You may have a folder maintained for each recipe type, so you can get a quick access to it.

Getting a brew specific software tool set is the best purchase I've made to date aside from my core equipment. The OP has his stuff in BeerXML so it would be a step backwards to strip it all down to plain text to import it into Word at this point I think. While any word processor app can handle organization of files, (actually excel would be better for this than word) he already has a brewing specific tool set that can handle that and do much more. He would lose all of the functionality beyond storage and archival of recipes that any word processor can do. Cool thing about the brewing specific applications like he already has are the tools included that go way beyond storage and organization. How a person organizes their recipes is a lot like how any of us choose to organize our garages, we already have the tools. It's a personal preference thing as to where to store them.