Brewtarget 1.2.3 - Free Open Source Brewing Software

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One thing I would like to see is a brew day section that allows you keep a digital copy of the brew day. Not just the instructions but all the info you enter as the day goes on so you can go back and look at what may have made a particular brew session turn out well.

Barry
 
coffeediver said:
One thing I would like to see is a brew day section that allows you keep a digital copy of the brew day. Not just the instructions but all the info you enter as the day goes on so you can go back and look at what may have made a particular brew session turn out well.
Click to expand...

+1

(Or in my case, help me figure out what I did wrong!)
 
Just a quick question for everyone....but first...thanks for the BrewTarget software. This stuff rocks, and I've used brewsmith, qbrew, etc.

As far as my question goes, it might be kinda dumb. Up until now I have been doing extract batches, but have recently made the switch to AG. My understanding of how different barley malts impart different flavor color and body characteristics is still in its infancy. From what I have been able to gather, the base malt is for the most part always a pale malt (2 row), and then other specialty grains are used to add unfermentable (some fermentable) sugars and color/flavors into the wort. My question regarding beer style is simply, does the specialty grains impart more beer style than the yeast you use, or are the grain bills really THAT important. Obviously for stouts and other darker beers you will need the addition of specialty grains to accomplish the style.

I guess in short, how do you know which combination of grains to use for a particular style of beer?
 
mcaple1 said:
Just a quick question for everyone....but first...thanks for the BrewTarget software. This stuff rocks, and I've used brewsmith, qbrew, etc.

As far as my question goes, it might be kinda dumb. Up until now I have been doing extract batches, but have recently made the switch to AG. My understanding of how different barley malts impart different flavor color and body characteristics is still in its infancy. From what I have been able to gather, the base malt is for the most part always a pale malt (2 row), and then other specialty grains are used to add unfermentable (some fermentable) sugars and color/flavors into the wort. My question regarding beer style is simply, does the specialty grains impart more beer style than the yeast you use, or are the grain bills really THAT important. Obviously for stouts and other darker beers you will need the addition of specialty grains to accomplish the style.

I guess in short, how do you know which combination of grains to use for a particular style of beer?
Click to expand...

It sounds like you are trying to determine how to create recipes. I would strongly suggest using tried and true recipes when first doing All Grain. You want to make sure you have your system figured out and some understanding of what each ingredients taste like and do in your beer prior to making recipes. Trust me, I know from experience - tried to make my own recipe right off the bat and it stunk! haha. I highly recommend the book Brewing Classic Styles. They have an award winning recipe for every style. Once you know your system and efficiencies you can easily enter the Brewing Classic Styles recipe and then use BrewTarget to Scale that recipe to meet your system. Thats what I do and love it!
 
What I like about other peoples advice is doing SMASH first to see what type of flavors are given off by one type of grain and one type of hop. SO far I have been sifting through the "recipes" section with success, altering them slightly and scaling them to fit my needs, as well as experimenting with other additions such as fruit, spikes, etc. Seems to be working, I was just wondering if a certain beer style "requires" a certain grain bill, or if the style is more heavily dependent on the yeast strain.
 
mcaple1 said:
What I like about other peoples advice is doing SMASH first to see what type of flavors are given off by one type of grain and one type of hop. SO far I have been sifting through the "recipes" section with success, altering them slightly and scaling them to fit my needs, as well as experimenting with other additions such as fruit, spikes, etc. Seems to be working, I was just wondering if a certain beer style "requires" a certain grain bill, or if the style is more heavily dependent on the yeast strain.
Click to expand...

Ya, Smashes are great for that. The true answer to your question is it depends. American Pale ales can be made with all 2-row, Or base malt with or without crystal malts etc. but using a good clean american ale yeast is pretty important. Where as some belgians, wheats, saisons etc are highly dependent on the yeast. Obviously brewing a specific style you will want to meld both components (yeast and grains) to fit style.
 
mcaple1 said:
Just a quick question for everyone....but first...thanks for the BrewTarget software. This stuff rocks, and I've used brewsmith, qbrew, etc.

As far as my question goes, it might be kinda dumb. Up until now I have been doing extract batches, but have recently made the switch to AG. My understanding of how different barley malts impart different flavor color and body characteristics is still in its infancy. From what I have been able to gather, the base malt is for the most part always a pale malt (2 row), and then other specialty grains are used to add unfermentable (some fermentable) sugars and color/flavors into the wort. My question regarding beer style is simply, does the specialty grains impart more beer style than the yeast you use, or are the grain bills really THAT important. Obviously for stouts and other darker beers you will need the addition of specialty grains to accomplish the style.

I guess in short, how do you know which combination of grains to use for a particular style of beer?
Click to expand...

I would recommend getting your hands on a copy of Ray Daniel's Designing Great Beers book. Really gets into the nuts and bolts of recipe formulation and spends time on each ingredient for different styles which helps you understand what they are contributing to that particular style. Also, it's just a great read in general if you are a home brewer.
 
I just installed BrewTarget because my ancient (2003?) registered ProMash won't install on my new Win7 box.

Wow. I am impressed.

Easy to use, handy as hell.

And it came with one of my recipes as part of the database, which has me stunned and humbled. I'm extremely gratified that my Mild has given such satisfaction.

Cheers! to you, Rocketman et al., and may success follow you! :mug:

Bob
 
itsme6582 said:
Rocketman, I know your list of to-dos is not long enough so I thought of another suggestion for ya!

It would be nice to have a sortable recipe screen. You could pull up all of your recipes and then sort them by style, extract/mini/ag, color, IBUs, alcohol, etc. I like that you can select a specific recipe from the main screen but as you personal recipe list grows it gets more and more difficult to remember what in the world those crazy names you came up with are. Then, the ability to open that recipe from the window would be a nice the final touch.

I've got some basic programming skills but working on an actual application is well beyond me. Any suggestions on where I could start learning how this all works? I think what you've got going here is fantastic and I would love to help.
Click to expand...

Our developer Mik is working on the recipe display to handle larger amounts of recipes and do some other things to make it more usable.

If you want to start playing around with the source, you can download it from our sourcefoge site and start tinkering! I recommend the Qt Creator IDE for editing the code. If you add any features or have something cool, send us a message and we'll put it in and add you to the project if you want.
 
Are the IBU's for an extract half boil calculated before or after top up water? In other words, are the IBU's shown correct, or do they need to be cut in half to factor in the top up water?
 
Killer capabilities in Brewtarget. I reverse engineered my last brew and worked out all the figures for my equipment and process. Great work on this software! I've got everything dialed in for a seriously accurate brew day. Wish I had more time to port over a brew day helper app for Android.

I was plugging in my next batch (Allagash White Clone) and can't seem to plug in oz units into the Miscellaneous tab. When I type in "0.5 oz" it converts it to "2.00 qt". Seems to want to use fluid units only.

Minor thing. Just set some notes for now. Much appreciation for releasing this gem open source.

Edit: Figured this out. Edited the Misc entries and check the "amount is weight" box. Doh!
 
I was reading through the manual and trying to set up a recipe - but wasn't sure how to set up a partial mash. Anyone help me out?

I was going to use 1 pound Munich Malt and .5 pound Wheat malt in a partial mash, then use 6 pounds Pilsner LME as the base. 1 ounce Tettnanger at 60 min, 1 ounce Tettnanger at 20 (maybe - but maybe earlier - still deciding), .5 ounce Tettnenger at 5 min. WLP029 yeast.

I've never done a partial mash before, and wasn't sure about how much water to use, what temp to bring it up to, how long to hold it, and what temp to sparge it at. Also wasn't sure how that would effect my OG and FG.

Anyone set up a Partial Mash in BrewTarget and have a XML they wouldn't mind sending me? Or basic instructions here? Maybe even a partial mash and partial boil?
 
Go through the manual. Don't just read it. Go through and actually make the recipe that is in there. Your questions are all covered in the manual.
 
MrNic said:
Are the IBU's for an extract half boil calculated before or after top up water? In other words, are the IBU's shown correct, or do they need to be cut in half to factor in the top up water?
Click to expand...

Anybody know this? It would really help me out.
 
MrNic said:
Anybody know this? It would really help me out.
Click to expand...

It's hard to say. It really depends on how you have your equipment entered. There are little popup hints that do a pretty decent job of explaining how to enter in the equipment properly. Click on the little ?s in the equipment screen. There are options for kettle top-up and fermentor top-up in there.

If you have the program set up properly it will give you good numbers.
 
callmebruce said:
I was reading through the manual and trying to set up a recipe - but wasn't sure how to set up a partial mash. Anyone help me out?

I was going to use 1 pound Munich Malt and .5 pound Wheat malt in a partial mash, then use 6 pounds Pilsner LME as the base. 1 ounce Tettnanger at 60 min, 1 ounce Tettnanger at 20 (maybe - but maybe earlier - still deciding), .5 ounce Tettnenger at 5 min. WLP029 yeast.

I've never done a partial mash before, and wasn't sure about how much water to use, what temp to bring it up to, how long to hold it, and what temp to sparge it at. Also wasn't sure how that would effect my OG and FG.

Anyone set up a Partial Mash in BrewTarget and have a XML they wouldn't mind sending me? Or basic instructions here? Maybe even a partial mash and partial boil?
Click to expand...

Steep the crushed malts in 1.5-2 gallons (5.7-7.5 L) of water at 158 °F (70 °C) for 30 minutes. Remove grains from wort, rinse with 0.5-.75 gallon (~2-2.5 L) of water under 170 °F (77 °C) if desired and add water to brewpot to make around 3-3.5 gallons (11-13 L) of wort total. Add the malt syrup and bring to a boil.
We have a brew club you should visit. Covert Hops Society - Atlanta's oldest brew club. We meet the third Tuesday of every month rotating at one of many local brewpubs. You'll learn a lot and meet some of the coolest people in the area.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coverthops/
 
itsme6582 said:
If the user could specify the database folder, the user could simply choose a folder within Dropbox. The databases would be instantly synced between all computers. This also has the added benefit of using Dropbox's archive capabilities of reverting back to previous versions of the file.
Click to expand...


This would be so awesome! I'm already doing this, through dropbox. Although its a manual process through backup and restore.
 
That's funny. Mine's been in my drop box since day one. I just stick the whole install there :) When an update comes out, I save off my recipes (outside the drop box) then delete everything and import them back into the new one. Then all my pcs get updated by drop box auto magically.
 
Would that method work cross platform though? I'm running OSX on my desktop where I formulate the recipies and then the laptop I'm using on brew day is running Mint Fluxbox.
 
Startderup - thanks for the info. That really helps. And thanks for the link.

Wow - installing this on Ubuntu was extremely trivial. Very easy install - so now I can swap between a Win7 laptop and an Ubuntu netbook.
 
neb_brewer said:
Would that method work cross platform though? I'm running OSX on my desktop where I formulate the recipies and then the laptop I'm using on brew day is running Mint Fluxbox.
Click to expand...

Doesn't seem to. I have both versions running off DropBox and I have to export/import into each version. . .


On a different note, would it be possible to add a "final report" kind of screen where we can put in the OG and FG and kind of record our results? perhaps calculate the abv? Stuff like that?

thanks - LOVE the program.
 
socalboomer said:
On a different note, would it be possible to add a "final report" kind of screen where we can put in the OG and FG and kind of record our results? perhaps calculate the abv? Stuff like that?
Click to expand...

In the "Extras" tab there is a blank "Taste Notes" and "Notes" area. That is where I put all of my notes.
 
I know - saw that and am using it.

But it might be nice to have it in a formal place along with perhaps an ABV calculator. :D
 
Ok. I dont know anything about computer software. I have verison 1.2.2 and love it. Works great. If i upgrade to 1.2.3 will it update the version i have or will i have a second program on my computer. Dont want to lose or have to transfer all my recipies. Thanks and great program.

Rock Chalk

Chris
 
Dirty said:
Ok. I dont know anything about computer software. I have verison 1.2.2 and love it. Works great. If i upgrade to 1.2.3 will it update the version i have or will i have a second program on my computer. Dont want to lose or have to transfer all my recipies. Thanks and great program.

Rock Chalk

Chris
Click to expand...

If you have the linux version, you can install the new version without doing anything else and you'll still have your old recipes. Otherwise, do the export database option from the File menu of 1.2.2, then after installing 1.2.3, do an import.
 
I grabbed the latest version for Mac and it wouldn't run on my system with 10.6.7 (I believe, what ever the latest version is)

Any ideas? What're the osx requirements?
 
rocketman768 said:
If you have the linux version, you can install the new version without doing anything else and you'll still have your old recipes. Otherwise, do the export database option from the File menu of 1.2.2, then after installing 1.2.3, do an import.
Click to expand...


Rocketman
Thanks My brother in-law walked me through what i needed to do and i downloaded and imported all the recopies just fine. Thanks and keep up the great work.

Rock Chalk

Chris

P.S. Why no Jayhawk wheat on this version?
 
I have a suggestion/ enhancement request; I would like it if after the "Amount" column, was a "volume" column that would tell you how many cups/tbsp LME/DME/Corn sugar/honey, et al for a given "Amount" in weight. I know some of these would have to be best guesses, but you could also customize them as normal for your particular ingredient. I just typically have another spread sheet to do the conversions and it would be nice to to it all in one tool.
 
Dahoov said:
In the "Extras" tab there is a blank "Taste Notes" and "Notes" area. That is where I put all of my notes.
Click to expand...

I agree, although I would love a calendar form like what BeerSmith has so we can record dates and times with information like OG, FG, temperatures, and the like.
 
Import recipes? Where are you getting this...are you just talking about the default ones preloaded into the program?
 
no - when you migrate from a different platform (like from Mac to PC or from Linux to Mac or whatever) you have to export the recipes on the old, then import in the new. . .
 
Problem:

I have 2 hop additions at 1hr. 1oz each (for a total 2oz) but under the brewday tab, step6:Hop Addition, it says to add 1.9oz.
 
cmaz said:
i've installed brewtarget and been playing around with it for a couple of weeks now and i am finding it really very useful. i have a couple of small suggestions that you can, of course, implement or ignore.

1) i'd like some ways to divide/subdivide/categorize the recipes. My original motive in this was i'd like to keep all the recipes that it comes with, but i'd also like to be able to view only the recipes that i have already made. This could be done by adding a field to the database, or perhaps be allowing the user to keep multiple databases or recipes. Of course, there are other categories that come to mind that might come in useful as well.

2) Along with this, i'd like a "rating" field somewhere. One to five stars, perhaps.

3) The ability to search and find recipes based on any of the ingredients or rating.

Regardless of whether you find these do-able or useful, much thanks for the time and effort you've already put into this.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with the search function idea.
 

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